2023-06-30 07:03:54
“Everything is fine,” Carlos Alcaraz responded to “Efe” on Wednesday. The Murcian has been appearing at the All England Club facilities for several days, greets Djokovic, Rune, signs some autographs… But he hasn’t practiced with the racket yet. Everything that happened last week has altered his plans. He went to Queen’s without much expectations, to play a couple of rounds, to get in contact with the grass, and after his first performance against Rinderknech in which he looked uncomfortable, it seemed that he was not going to last long. “That game was logical,” says Antonio Martínez Cascales, founder of the JC Ferrero Equelite and who is part of the Alcaraz work team, which he sometimes leads, which he accompanies to some tournaments and which has seen him grow. “You play on that surface from year to year for two or three weeks and it’s complicated, especially for those who weren’t born in countries that have grass courts,” he adds.
Spain is not a country of grass courts. In the JC Ferrero Equelite there is synthetic grass, but it has nothing to do with it. The fact is that Carlos, overcoming that first obstacle, grew, winning and convincing, until he conquered Queen’s. He played more than he thought and also ended up with a problem in his right leg, which is why this week he has altered his idea. He was going to play two exhibition matches, but he has decided that the body comes first. So he has rested, he has played golf and has done stretching exercises and physical therapy to prevent the thigh. Today is finally the time to grab the racket again. Today, the day he will know the path that awaits him ahead, because it is the draw for the draw, where he starts as number one. The only sure thing is that with Djokovic he could only face each other in a hypothetical final.
Djokovic, favorite
Carlos himself was surprised by his adaptation and although he always sees himself as having a chance of success, he is aware that Djokovic is the undisputed favorite in London, because he has seven titles there, including the last four. He has not lost since 2017 and he only has more wins in the All England (86), than the rest of the “top 20” combined (85). Alcaraz has four, and eleven total grass-court games in his professional career. “I think I can become a good grass-court player,” says Carlos, who has done more concrete work for this surface after the short break after Roland Garros.
“He has very appropriate shots for grass”
Work, for example, physical. “The entire rear part of the buttocks and legs suffers much more on grass, with which he has done more specific training for the glutes, hamstrings and all this. You have to play much more flexed,” says Martínez Cascales. The powerful right that the Murcian has also appeared little by little in Queen’s. In grass there is a nuance. “You have to be better supported with your left leg. You can’t support both legs and throw your left back, but you have to support your left and move your right hip forward, marking it much more than on other courts, because if you don’t eat the ball and you don’t do any damage to the opponent”, describes Cascales, who continues to analyze the game of number one on green, indicating that the key is in movement. “He, due to his style of play, of blows more than of movements, can play well on grass. You have to take care of your movements a little more. His are very explosive, the supports are strong and by pressing so much on the ground and being a On such a complicated ground, you can have more slipping problems, become destabilized and all that. But due to blows, they are very appropriate for grass”.
Backhand cut and serve
We are facing the attack surface because, precisely because of the difficulty of movement and because the ball slips and rises less, it is very difficult to defend. Whoever has the chance to attack first must do so. It is also the place where the cut backhand, which Carlos “practices a lot”, is used regularly, not only as a resource, because the very inertia of the game on grass leads you to it. Finally, the serve, one of the aspects that the Alcaraz work team has been insisting on the most since the preseason, is more decisive on grass. He already has it good, but there is room for improvement. What they want is to increase the percentages of first. “Little by little he is managing to improve it, especially in difficult moments: he concentrates a little more and is saving many points with the serve. In the Queen’s final, for example with the 0-30 in the last game, it was seen”, concludes Cascales.
Carlos’s weapons are getting sharper on grass too.
#stronger #legs #careful #supports #cut #backhand..