If a player knocks on a racing shot to save a breaking point, but later, he is destroyed three uncompvious mistakes and a double fault, is it a good tennis? For Carlos Alcarazcertainly.
He delivered an example of a tension signal crossing his documentary series, “My Way”, just as Netflix published his trailer. While Alcaraz oscillated between the sublime and the absurd in the court against Daniel Altmaier at Monte Carlo Masters in Monaco, the streaming company released a snapshot from the series on Youtube.
He asks fundamental questions of tennis: how much should she demand from her stars? How much sacrifice should the greatness take? And is there an itinerary to grandeur that does not require all the player looking for it?
Against Altmaier, Alcaraz found himself down 30-40 in his first match in his match. The German pleased a drop kick just above the net, sliding Alcaraz forward …
He answered with a clear and transverse angle …
… But Altmaier read the shot and moved to the field, to send the ball to the bottom of the line on the other side.
Alcaraz, flowing diagonally to his left, should hit a blow through his legs. The easiest option was to send the ball back. Altmaier duly moved to cover this blow; Alcaraz, perhaps obviously, did not hit him.
Instead, he exploited the ball on the line, sending Altmaier blurring to his corner of the reverse. The German managed to increase the balloon in play, but Alcaraz was waiting to crush a chosen dish in the same corner, that Altmaier could only send in the net.
It was an example of divine inspiration and sometimes of the skills of another world – and joy – that Alcaraz brings to the court, and which transported it to the upper levels of tennis.
“It’s beautiful to play points like that,” said Alcaraz later, looking at it. “I try to make a show, trying to entertain people. A point like that … just to think, how my games are going to be. “
The rest of the match was not so much like that.
After saving this break point, Alcaraz missed a first routine ground behind his service. He saved four other breaks in the match and maintained his service for 1-1. He then broke Altmaier to lead 3-2, before hitting three uns forked errors and a double fault to break straight in the next match.
It was the model of the first set, oscillating between brilliant points and routine errors, before Alcaraz separates from 5-3 to take it, 6-3.
The second set was more routine, the Spaniard triumphant finally 6-3, 6-1 to set up a quarter-final against the seeded n ° 12 Arthur son.
“I want to do it in my own way,” says Alcaraz, in the trailer of the series, of his goal of being the best player in the world. This ambition is interspersed with opinions by Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who both did it.
“To accomplish what Novak (Djokovic), Roger or I have done,” says Nadal, “you must feel that the sacrifices are worth it and that they bear fruit.”
With 66 Grand Chelem titles between the three biggest male players of all time, there is little argument they paid in success. What Alcaraz seems to ask is whether or not they paid other ways.
Alcaraz, 21, already has four Grand Chelem titles. He is the youngest man to win an adult in the three areas, and still has two other opportunities – at the openings of Australia 2026 and 2027 – to become the youngest man to win the four majors.
If he wins the title in Monaco, he returned to place n ° 2 in the classification of men, behind his closest rival and the player with whom he shares the best coat in the world: Jannik Sinner.
His style of play is so unique that his victories and losses can appear as another world.
When he loses, whether it is a whole or an entire match, he tends to lose badly. Creativity looks like naivety and the shooting looks like waste – and that tends to occur against less classified players. He has had 16 defeats and his retirement due to an injury since the beginning of 2024, but only six of these defeats came against the 10 best players. Two of these six came to a tournament, the ATP 2024 touring finals, during which he was struggling with illness. The average classification of his opponents in the other 10 losses is 32.
He makes adjustments, mentally and technically, especially at his service and his reverse. He changed the motion on the first and the resumption of the racket on the second, which means that errors sometimes flow like water but also reveal a dedication to improvement on the fly, one of the most difficult things to do considering the demanding calendar of tennis.
Alcaraz describes the challenges of this calendar in the trailer, stressing that he wants to spend time at home, see his family. If he also wants to dominate sport like Djokovic, Nadal and Federer have done so, this time will be limited.
While the Nadal and Federer retired alluding it to their heads of speech heads of Netflix, it is only possible to know if all this was worth it.
On the way, there will be tweners.
There will also be mistakes.
(Top Photo: Valery Hache / AFP via Getty Images)