Carlos Alcaraz’s Reaction Goes Viral On Tricky Rafael Nadal Question: WATCH

With Wimbledon 2024 around the corner, defending champion Carlos Alcaraz was asked by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) to build his perfect grass court player. Alcaraz had to choose each player as per their respective skill set. But, when it came to Rafael Nadal, the youngster was shocked, which is why his expression has gone viral on social media.

Carlos Alcaraz was provided with the following skillsets – serve, forehand, backhand, touch, speed and mentality. Whenever the LTA showed him one tennis player’s picture at a time, Alcaraz had to place him or her beside the skill set that they are renowned for.

The quiz game started with Carlos Alcaraz himself, and the 21-year-old placed his name besides ‘speed’. There is no doubt about that, since Alcaraz plays at a superior pace than most of his opponents. His agility and power combined, make him a formidable player.

After that, he chose Stefanos Tsitsipas for ‘forehand’, Ons Jabeur for ‘touch’, and Coco Gauff for ‘mentality’. Until that point, it was going fine. Even though all fans wouldn’t agree to each of those choices unanimously, it still made sense in Alcaraz’ s context.

But then came the option of Rafael Nadal. Carlos Alcaraz was suddenly confused as to where he should place Rafael Nadal’s name. The problem arose because Nadal’s name came later in that quiz game, and Alcaraz had already assigned forehand, touch, and mentality to other players. Now he was left with ‘serve’ and ‘backhand’ – the two skills that historically have not been Nadal’s strongest suits.

He placed his hand on his mouth, thought for a while, and then placed Nadal beside ‘serve’. Despite the limited options under which Alcaraz made this choice, he was still mocked by many online. The clip went viral, shared by none other than Pavvy G, who is known as one of the superfans of Novak Djokovic.

Many tennis fans commented on how Nadal wasn’t the best ‘server’, otherwise he would’ve had a much better record on grass.

To be fair to Rafael Nadal, the Spaniard did improve on his serve under Carlos Moya’s coaching. This is one reason why he won 8 Grand Slams from 2017-2022. However, as Alcaraz’s pick has come under the scanner, it highlighted the drawback of such a quiz just for coming up with engaging content on social media.

How LTA Could’ve Approached Carlos Alcaraz With a Better Quiz Format

Instead of providing Alcaraz with a player’s name and picture, and asking him to assign them as per each skill set, the LTA could’ve given Alcaraz a more open choice. They could’ve just placed each skill set one by one and allowed Alcaraz to choose a player as per his will. This way, he would’ve had more choices and he wouldn’t have been forced to assign Nadal as the best server on grass.

However, there is a case to be made for ‘serve’ not being the strongest skill set on grass. Nadal may not have had the best serve, but he did win Wimbledon twice in his career. He also reached the final 3 other times.

Interestingly enough, Novak Djokovic has won Wimbledon 7 times, and he too isn’t most renowned for his serve. Djokovic is arguably the greatest ever returner tennis has ever seen and used that strength of his to overpower his opponents. Therefore, it is possible to slow down the game on grass and use other skills to accrue points without being exceptional with the serve.

After serve, Alcaraz was left with backhand, which he had to automatically assign to Elina Svitolina.