Many statistics show that Carlos Alcaraz was born to play on the big stage. At 22 years of age, he already has five Grand Slam titles and has surpassed 19 first-round matches in the best tournaments in the world. The latest of these was on Monday in New York, in the closing match of the day at Arthur Ashe Stadium
Alcaraz, who sported a new look for the occasion (completely shaved) and a sleeveless jersey from the multinational Nike, put the shield to finish off the giant Reilly Opelka, winning 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 in two hours and five minutes
Opelka, who stands at 2.11 metres, came into the match with 3,933 aces to his name throughout his career, which gave him an average of more than 17 per match. But it is not the same to play with mortals as it is to play with Alcaraz, a tennis player who has a magic wand in his racket and who is the best of the present season. He is the leader of the Race with 8,590 points, in victories (55) and titles (6). Of all his triumphs, 22 of them have been on hard courts, on which the majority of events on the calendar are played.
You feel that everything depends on him, one of the things I did well was to subtract
Impeccable serve
The second seed did not lose a single point of the 20 he played with the serve. He had an 85 percent first serve percentage when in the Cincinnati semifinal against Alexander Zverev, it was 53 percent. That’s why he went to practice immediately afterwards
For the 17th time this season, out of a total of 61 matches, the tennis player from El Palmar went to the locker room without dropping his serve. The previous precedent was in the recent final of the Cincinnati Masters 1000 with Jannik Sinner. It ended in the fifth game (5-0) by withdrawal. The only blemish was the six double faults
Carlitos gave a scare when he fell in the second set and dropped his racket to support himself on the cement of the Arthur Ashe. It was a false alarm.
Pressure on Sinner
Alcaraz’s passage to the second round, matching his result at last year’s US Open, puts him virtually as world number one. He has 9,590 points, 100 more than Sinner before the Italian’s debut on Tuesday against Czech Vit Kopriva. From now on, he can only add to his tally in the race to snatch the crown from the Italian
A compatriot of Jannik, in this case Mattia Bellucci, awaits the Spaniard on Wednesday in the second round of the Open. There is no precedent between the two
The wink at McIlroy
Alcaraz celebrated the victory as if he were playing golf. It was a nod to Rory McIlroy, who had gone to see him in training. The Spaniard is known for his love of golf
Before going to the locker room, he endeared himself to the crowd by asking them about his change of image. The shouts were an affirmative response
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