Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday became the first player in 21 years to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title apart from Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and the man who the Spaniard vanquished in the final, Novak Djokovic. Co-incidentally, Alcaraz was born just 2 months before Federer won the first Grand Slam title of his career, creating a path for the rest to follow.
However, surprisingly even someone like Federer took his time to adapt to the iconic grass court in London. In what is another incredible achievement, it took Alcaraz just 18 matches on grass before being crowned the champion, making him one of the fastest to win the Wimbledon in many years. Even Nadal and Djokovic took longer than Alcaraz to warm up to grass.
Carlos Alcaraz is miles ahead of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic
Another fact which may stun tennis enthusiasts is that Rafael Nadal played 31 grass court matches before he famously won the 2008 Wimbledon title. This is 8 less than the man who is called the ‘King of Grass’ till date, Roger Federer, who actually had a lot of experience on grass and suffered some tough losses before finding his peak in 2003.
For a clay court specialist, Nadal actually had a remarkable run on grass early in his career since he made it to the 2006, 2007 and 2011 finals, having also won the championship in 2010. He missed out in 2009 due to injury and Federer made the most of that to regain his supremacy on the throne, having won in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 prior to that.
However, the Swiss star could only win twice after 2009, i.e. in 2012 and 2017. This is due to the rise of Novak Djokovic, who took as many as 49 grass court matches before he could win the first out of his 7 Wimbledon titles back in 2011. Federer and Djokovic parallelly created records they own till date and broke some as well.
Wimbledon is considered to be the toughest Grand Slam to win by many pundits and enthusiasts, but Carlos Alcaraz doing it in just 18 matches has them excited and perhaps now ready to accept life beyond the ‘Big Three’. It is astonishing that Alcaraz, who was knocked out in the Round of 64 and Round of 16 of the Wimbledon in the last two editions respectively, found his footing this season in some fashion, starting with the Queen’s victory last month.
Does Carlos Alcaraz have a surface weakness?
This is a question now posed by many fans since grass was considered to be his Achilles Heel. With Alcaraz having already won the US Open last year and 2 other hard court tournaments on the ATP Tour already, his prowess on the surface has never been in doubt. That is also some feat for someone who has trained most of his life on clay courts in Spain.
Yet ironically, clay is the only surface where Alcaraz hasn’t won a Grand Slam on, missing out on a great opportunity at the French Open this year. However, he has so far compensated for that with 7 ATP Tour titles on the surface out of his 12.
As a result, Alcaraz being versatile at the age of 20 is a scary proposition for any opponent and perhaps something never seen of a youngster before in the history of the game. Will he shatter more Federer, Nadal and Djokovic records? Well, the Serbian thinks so himself as it is quite a compliment to call him a ‘complete, never-seen-before player’ who is a perfect mix of all the 3 legends.
