on the Queen’s lawn, Alcaraz wants to prepare Wombledon as well as possible to forget Roland-Garros

2023-06-18 21:10:31

At 20, the former world number one is preparing to play only his third tournament on grass.

The Queen’s will be for Carlos Alcaraz only the third grass-court tournament of his young career, but it is nevertheless on this little-known surface that the Spaniard will have to recover from his painfully lost Roland-Garros semi-final against Novak Djokovic.

The body of this gifted 20-year-old in Paris gave way due to stress and poor mental management of the event. Crippled with cramp, he collapsed 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1. But it is now a new challenge that awaits him: to prepare for a change of surface in view of the next Grand Slam, Wimbledon, which arrives in two weeks (July 3 to 16).

«I arrived in London on Saturday morning and had my first grass training yesterdaysaid Alcaraz at a press conference on Sunday. “I couldn’t train too much at home because we don’t have grass pitches. I have to adapt my movements and my shots on the grass, but I’m really happy with the training I’ve had here.»

On the grass, he analyzed Sunday at a press conference, “you have to be more careful than on other surfaces, so for me the most difficult thing on grass is moving around (…) The most comfortable thing is getting to the net and playing aggressively all the time, this is my style and i like it».

«But there are a lot of players who play slice on grass. I’m not part of it, so I have to think about the movement. Gotta be focused on every move and every shot“, Continues the young man who had reached the knockout stages of Wimbledon last year, beaten in four sets by Jannik Sinner.

«For me, moving on grass is more tiring. It’s totally different, so you have to be really specificconcludes the Spaniard, who will be seeded number one at Queen’s, and will start the tournament against French qualifier Arthur Fils.

After his defeat in Paris, Alcaraz fell to second in the world behind Djokovic. To quickly find the summit, he will have to master the grass. To date, his ten titles on the circuit have all been won on clay (seven) or hard courts (three).