Carlos Alcaraz came into the 2025 season with several goals; to add weight to the neck of his racquet, to change his serve technique and... to prevent lapses in concentration during matches, something that troubled him at times in 2024. In his third-round match at the Australian Open Friday, Alcaraz lost his first set of the tournament, but it was not due to a lack of focus.
"More than a mental lapse, it was a loss of feel, not being able to find it and not being able to get back the feels I had in the first set,” explained Alcaraz after defeating Nuno Borges 6-2, 6-4, 6-7(3), 6-2. "It was already coming in the second set. I started to notice my feel was going, above all on the return. I struggled to get the ball in play and on the return I couldn’t string any good points together.
"I ended up winning the set 6-4, but honestly it was quite tough. In the third set it was more of the same because my feel didn’t improve. I tried to fight to get it back, but he also deserves credit for winning the third set.”
It was the first set that the No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings had dropped in the tournament, losing in a tie-break against a determined Borges, who came out raring to go in the fourth.
“Once I’d lost the third set, I regrouped. I knew I had to pick my level up, make fewer errors and maybe slow it down a bit, play a little more within myself so that the rallies were longer,” said Alcaraz. “The goal was to get my confidence back and get back to my own style, to being aggressive. And that’s what I did in the fourth.
“In the first games I slowed it down a bit, playing within myself, trying to get that feel back so I could play my game, which is what I ended up doing. As I said, more than a mental lapse, it was a loss of feel.”
Alcaraz will now take on the winner of the clash between Jack Draper and Aleksandar Vukic for a place in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, where he is bidding to become the youngest player of all time to complete the Career Grand Slam.
© Copyright 1994 - 2024 ATP Tour, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means (including photocopying, recording or storing it in any medium by electronic means), without the written permission of ATP Tour, Inc.. Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Community Social Media Policy | Modern Slavery Statement | Feedback | Cookies | Your Privacy Choices 
