Carlos Alcaraz Admits Focusing On World No. 1 Rank Was 'Wrong Thing To Do'
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Carlos Alcaraz admitted that focusing on overtaking Jannik Sinner as the World No. 1 player on the ATP Tour wasn't the right thing to do.
Alcaraz is a very ambitious tennis player, and as such, he certainly wants to be the first name that pops up when someone opens the rankings. At the moment, he is the third man on that list.
The 21-year-old Spaniard spoke multiple times about having the ambition to be the best in history, but he also knows that he won't play well all the time, which has been the case for him recently.
At the 2025 Monte-Carlo Masters, however, Alcaraz got back to winning ways, beating Francisco Cerundolo and Daniel Altmaier to reach the quarter-finals of the tournament.
Speaking to Prakash Amritraj on the Tennis Channel desk, Alcaraz spoke about his match against Daniel Altmaier, which was certainly a success for the Spaniard, who was able to win in two straightforward sets.
"I just felt great today. It's the first time I'm on clay, we had one week to prepare for this tournament, so I guess it is a process to just keep going every day and to keep getting better and better."
"The first round was a little bit tricky for me, struggling a little bit with the game, but today I felt much better, and hopefully in the quarter-final I will feel even better. I think it's about time you spend on the court."
Alcaraz was also asked about being able to shift gears during matches. In his first match in Monte-Carlo this year, he lost the first set to Francisco Cerundolo 3-6, but he was then able to win the next two sets 6-0 and 6-1.
"Well, I think it's really important to see what's happening, what's going on during the match, and try to improve or change the things that are going wrong. I think in the first set I couldn't play aggressively, the way I like playing. So, I knew I had to change something."
The Spanish superstar was also asked about whether he focuses on the rankings. After Jannik Sinner's three-month suspension, Alcaraz was one of the players who had a chance to take over the World No. 1 spot, but he now won't manage to do that before the Italian's return.
However, that doesn't seem to be bothering Alcaraz at the moment. He admitted that he worked on changing his mindset not to focus on the rankings, as he felt like it wasn't the right thing to do.
"I've been paying attention to the rankings and to the stats, but I think it's the wrong thing to do. Right now, I realize that I have to just play. Because I love playing tennis, I love stepping on the court."
"Just to play good tennis and forget about the ranking and forget about everything. I realized I had to do that, and now during the clay-court season, I'm going to try to do that, to forget about everything and just play."
In the quarter-finals of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Monte-Carlo, Alcaraz will take on Arthur Fils, who played an incredible match to beat former champion Andrey Rublev.
