There are many ways to win a tennis match, and in his brief time as a professional Carlos Alcaraz has demonstrated a familiarity with most of them. But while we have quickly become acquainted with Alcaraz’s vast repertoire of shots and the athletic brilliance with which he deploys them, the strength of the Spaniard’s mentality has commanded less attention. As he demonstrated in opening his Madrid Open title defence with a 2-6. 6-4, 6-2 win over Emil Ruusuvuori, a 24-year-old Finn ranked 41 in the world, his mind is a weapon as formidable as any other in his well-stocked arsenal.
A year after he swept all before him in the Spanish capital, defeating Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev in successive rounds, Alcaraz was in very real danger of falling at the first hurdle. Ruusuvuori was the winner of their only previous meeting, two years ago in Miami, and while Alcaraz is a very different player now, the manner in which the smooth-hitting Finn dictated the opening set suggested he was more than capable of a repeat.
There is a little of Jannik Sinner, another player who troubles Alcaraz, about Ruusuvuori. Tall, wiry and understated, the Finn fires clean, precise groundstrokes with equal facility off either wing, not least on the return, where he repeatedly landed the ball at Alcaraz’s feet, leaving the defending champion off balance and flicking at improvised half-volleys. On one occasion, the ball arrived back at Alcaraz’s shoe tops so swiftly that he was forced to take a low forehand on the volley from just inside the baseline.
It is rare for the Spaniard to absorb rather than administer such punishment, rarer still for him to suffer an off day. And as the unforced errors mounted – nearly half of his 33 mistakes came in the first set – the spectacle became ever more incongruous. Alcaraz looked as perplexed as anyone; we are accustomed to seeing him fight, but not against himself.
Ruusuvuori backed up his impressive play off the ground with immaculate serving, particularly in the opening set, where he landed just over two-thirds of his first deliveries and won the point whenever he did. Ruusuvuori’s dominance was such that, by the time he cemented a 4-1 first-set lead, he had won 14 of the previous 18 points; Alcaraz’s frustration was such that, when he missed a routine pass five games into the second set, there was a rare flash of anger from the teenager, who slammed his racket into the court.
“I do not support this kind of thing and I regret it,” Alcaraz, who will play Grigor Dimitrov in the next round, later told Spanish reporters. “I have discussed it with Juan Carlos [Ferrero, his coach] and this type of thing cannot happen.”
The acid test for Alcaraz, the top seed in the absence of the injured Djokovic, came in the next game, where he battled for 14 minutes, fending off five break points, before finally holding for 3-3. It was a fascinating vignette, one that showcased the Spaniard’s mental steel as his game flickered in and out of life, brilliant one moment, baffling the next. The best of it was an impudent, skipping half-volley that set up an easy putaway; the worst of it, a backhand that flew inexplicably long, barely bouncing before it hit the advertising hoardings. But on a day when his usual assurance frequently deserted him, Alacaraz found what he needed when he most needed it. When he finally clinched the game with a rifled backhand winner, emitting a prolonged, triumphant roar, it felt like a turning point – and so it proved.
“I would say I was about to lose,” said Alcaraz of that pivotal game. “It was just one point. One of the break points he had at 3-2 in the second set was like a match point for him. I’m really happy I was able to save that game and come back a little bit.
“When I saved my serving game, being 3-3 in the second, I thought, ‘This is my chance, this is my moment.’ I tried to take that. I was very, very focused, I tried to put every ball in and run to every ball. I would say with a good attitude in the whole match I was able to come back.
“Emil was better than me until 3-3 in the second set. He was playing well with no mistakes, hitting the ball so, so good, with a lot of rhythm, and I couldn’t follow his rhythm. It was very tough for me to stay there, but I’m really happy to be able to come back and finish with a lot of confidence.”
The same could be said for Zverev, who survived an equally searching examination at the hands of Spain’s Roberto Carballes Baena, eventually coming through 6-7 (6-8), 7-5, 6-0 in a contest that finished shortly before 1.30am local time. The German former world No 2, twice the champion in Madrid, required treatment on a leg injury in the first set but eventually recovered from a set and a break down to prevail in three hours and 25 minutes.
As Alcaraz put it afterwards, “Sufrimos, pero ganamos”: “We suffer, but we win.”