18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz beat world number seven Matteo Berrettini 6-1, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) in the Vienna Open quarterfinals today. The match wasn’t as closely contested as the average third-set-breaker battle; Alcaraz won 15 more points in the match and was broken just one time from one break point. Here are a few of my observations from the contest.
1. Carlos Alcaraz is on a fierce upswing. He’s ranked 42nd in the world, but in terms of polish his game has to be in the top 20, or higher. He has an all-world return game at the tender age of 18, all the easy power you could ask for on both forehand and backhand, good movement, and soft hands. The one clear area that can improve is his serve; there’s not much acing power and placement can only take you so far off the back of 100-110 mph deliveries. But considering the relative dearth of good returners on the ATP, this might be a fix Alcaraz can take his time with. Take today’s 6-1, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (5) win over world number seven Matteo Berrettini. Alcaraz faced all of one break point in the match, and that was at the end of an atrocious service game where he essentially broke himself, coughing up a double fault at love-40. Berrettini’s serve is worlds better than Alcaraz, yet the young Spaniard held easily time after time, losing just 20% of points on his first serve and 26% on his second. For reference, Berrettini lost 23% of points played on his first serve and 54% of points on his second.
2. Alcaraz will undoubtedly come up against players who will destroy his serve, making every one of his service games a struggle. There comes a point where no amount of great returning can compensate for the inability to get easy service holds. But it’s hard to think of who those players might be besides Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev. They could also presumably grind Alcaraz down physically with their all-world defense. But these are the #1 and #2 players we’re talking about here. Alcaraz’s win over Berrettini is his second over a top-eight player in less than two months. That it’s tough to name many who could pose a serious matchup problem for Alcaraz speaks volumes about how well-rounded his game is.
3. A continuation of the last point — this result really didn’t feel like an upset. Yes, Berrettini wasn’t at his best, but besides his serve in the first set, it wasn’t as if a part of his game that he usually excels at let him down (by the end of the match, Berrettini had made 61% of his first serves and hit 12 aces. This is by no means bad). His return is generally problematic, and while it’s not ideal that he could only produce a single break point, it’s not really shocking. During rallies, his forehand probably has an edge in raw pace, but Alcaraz’s forehand doesn’t trail much in speed or weight; the difference between their backhands is greater, at any rate. Berrettini’s slice is clearly better, but slices rarely tip the balance of a point (though they can). Much of this matchup rests on the racket of the man who is five years younger and 36 spots lower in the rankings.
4. Alcaraz blew his chances in the second set tiebreak by missing a really short forehand at 1-all (which should have been put away for a winner) and later a neutral forehand from the baseline. Berrettini, who was raining down huge serves, took the tiebreak easily. It was impressive how Alcaraz wiped this from his mind in time for the final breaker; he slammed home a forehand winner to go up 4-1 and sealed the match with a service winner out wide.
On this service winner, I think Berrettini’s substandard return was highlighted in his inability to get it back. The serve was 192 km/h — 120 miles per hour. To be clear, a 120 mph serve is not automatically returnable. But the serve didn’t come close to hitting either line; Berrettini barely had to take two steps to get in position to make the return. But he sent his backhand into the top of the net. Alcaraz hit a good serve, but I’m not sure it should have been a winning serve. At 5-6 in a tiebreak, missing a return like this is an expensive error, regardless of if that tiebreak is in a deciding set or not.
5. A key ingredient to becoming a major champion in the current era of the ATP is having abundant physical endurance. Players can’t win big titles by only playing short points in this age. And in best-of-five, the challenge becomes tougher — at the least, you’ll have to play 21 sets to win the title. Alcaraz, with his average serve, isn’t yet in a place where he can consistently win matches efficiently. Thus, he’ll need legs that can carry him at a sprint, on-and-off, over the course of five hours (possibly more than once over the two-week span of a major).
In the best-of-three matches in Vienna, I’m not sure how much will be revealed about his physicality, even if he is playing every day. But it’s worth noting that Murray complimented his endurance after Alcaraz beat him 6-3, 6-4 in a brutal two-hour slugfest that belies the innocent scoreline. If I were Alcaraz’s coach, I would be emphasizing endurance and the serve over everything else. If those things improve and the other parts of his game merely stay at their current level, the main obstacle to him winning big titles will be other players competing at extremely high levels, not anything in Alcaraz’s own game.
6. Up next for Alcaraz is Alexander Zverev, who has been credibly accused of domestic violence by Olga Sharypova. Zverev is the world #4 and was a set away from making the U.S. Open final. But he’s dropped sets to Alex de Minaur and Félix Auger-Aliassime this week. Zverev’s serve is immeasurably better than Alcaraz’s and he’s more capable from the baseline than Berrettini, but if Alcaraz can avoid getting dragged into dogfights every service game, he’s very capable of pulling off the upset.
7. Casper Ruud is currently 7th in the ATP race to Turin. He’s won five titles this year, including an impressive destruction of Cam Norrie in the San Diego final. But as of now, Alcaraz appears the more dynamic player on a hard court. Ruud’s recent results on cement, besides that San Diego title, include heavy losses to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Zverev, a loss from a set up against Botic van de Zandschulp at the U.S. Open, a lethargic loss to Diego Schwartzman in Indian Wells, and now a straight-set loss to Jannik Sinner in Vienna (he narrowly avoided a bagel in the second set). Ruud is a great clay-court player and has done some damage on hard court. He thoroughly deserves his spot in the top ten, as well as a spot at the ATP Finals, if he makes it there. But purely from a competitiveness standpoint, if Alcaraz could go to Turin in Ruud’s place, I think he would do more damage.
A terrific piece full of great insights.
Your command of tennis technical and strategic detail is so impressive Owen.
Many thanks.
I really appreciate it, Mike! Thanks for stopping by to read.