As if it’s not enough of a challenge to hang in rallies with Carlos Alcaraz, to find a hole in his considerable arsenal, to match his all-court speed and aggression, the Spaniard’s opponents have to try to match him between points too.
If you caught his one-hour, 56-minute quarterfinal demolition of No. 20 seed Jiri Lehecka of Czechia at the US Open on Tuesday afternoon, you saw it in action. That body language? That swagger? It was self-belief in physical action: An intimidation that only the sleeveless, pink-clad, military-shorn Alcaraz could deliver.
“I think that today I kind of met the Grand Slam version of Carlos," Lehecka said afterwards.
As Alcaraz himself told USOpen.org, “Between points is really important, as well. We’re playing two kinds of matches at the same time. It is the match of playing the points and the match behind the scenes, let’s say. So the body language, how you show the opponents how you feel, is really important.”
“It doesn’t matter if you feel exhausted, you feel really tired, you feel like you cannot keep it going," he continued. "If you show the opponent you’re fresh, you’re able to play two, three, more hours, to play long rallies, it’s giving him the mindset of this is going to be really tough."
In essence, the 22-year-old, who was the titlist here in Flushing Meadows in 2022, when he became the youngest No. 1 in the history of the ATP Rankings, is always on.
“The way that I walk between points, with attitude, like I’m fresh, I’m really good physically,” he said, “I think it’s really important to show the opponent that they are going to sweat a lot, and they are going to have to run a lot if he wants to beat me.”
