For Carlos Alcaraz, a memorable year appears to be spluttering to a forgettable conclusion. Vanquished in three sets by Alexander Zverev on his debut appearance at the ATP Finals in Turin, the Spanish world No 2 has now lost three times in a row for the first time in more than two and a half years. To judge from his evident discomfort with the quick conditions at the Pala Alpitour, things could get worse before they get better.
Alcaraz has come so far, so fast, that it is easy to forget he is still only 20 years old. The greater surprise is not that he fell to a 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4 defeat against Zverev, a two-time winner at the season-ending showpiece, but that he has hitherto been able to avoid the fluctuations in form and consistency that so often afflict young champions.
The fact remains, though, that less than a fortnight after an early defeat at the Paris Masters delivered a terminal blow to his hopes of clinching the year-end No 1 ranking, Alcaraz may face a battle even to retain second spot. Daniil Medvedev, who later sealed a 6-4, 6-2 win over his close friend and Russian compatriot Andrey Rublev, is coming up fast on the rails, and could potentially overtake the Wimbledon champion with a repeat of the undefeated title run he compiled three years ago in London.
There is a lot of tennis to be played before then, of course, and Alcaraz may yet escape Red Group. Yet he has looked far from his usual self these past few weeks. Defeated by Grigor Dimitrov at the Shanghai Masters, the Spaniard subsequently pulled out of the Swiss Indoors with injury, then suffered a shock defeat to Roman Safiullin in his opening match at the Paris Masters. It is all a far cry from the early months of the season, when Alcaraz returned from a hamstring injury that kept him out of the Australian Open to win six titles in five months.
Alcaraz dismissed suggestions that his early defeat in Paris left him underprepared for the season finale, instead blaming his latest setback on missed opportunities. The Murcian converted just one of his six break points, struggling to cope with Zverev’s thunderous serving on a court that proved a little too quick for his liking.
“This surface is the fastest on the year, that’s for sure,” said Alcaraz. “I don’t know why they put this kind of surface at the end of the year, because all the tournaments that we have played on hard courts are so slow, then we come here to the Masters and they put this court, so fast.”
Throughout his meteoric rise, Alcaraz has demonstrated a knack for making tennis look easy. As Medvedev pointed out, however, it is a “very, very tricky sport”, and the Spaniard’s recent travails have not gone unnoticed in the locker room. Medvedev elaborated on perceived aura of vulnerability surrounding the two-time grand slam winner as the season draws to a close.
“At this moment, for whatever reason, we feel that Carlos plays just a little bit slower,” said Medvedev, who slammed down 10 aces to avenge last year’s group-stage defeat to Rublev. “He doesn’t have the same confidence he had throughout the whole year. This can happen to everyone. This even happened to Novak when he was younger.
“The question is, how fast is he going to recover? Is it going to be this tournament or next year? When he lost the second set, they showed the speed of the strokes, groundstrokes. Sascha was like 10 kilometres higher than Carlos. This is very surprising.”
Equally surprising was Alcaraz’s inability to drive home his advantage after finally breaking Zverev’s first-set resistance in a tiebreak. The German fought tooth and claw to stay in the opener, saving three set points at 5-4, and after seeing his efforts go unrewarded, the 26-year-old faced a moment of real crisis when he nudged a backhand wide to go break point down in the opening game of the second set. Alcaraz replied in kind, however, driving the ball long in a moment symptomatic of the inconsistency that marred an entertaining but patchy performance.
There was a late scare for Zverev, who slipped and fell while chasing a forehand late in the decider, his pain evident as he writhed on the court clutching his left ankle. It inevitably brought back memories of the horrific injury he suffered in the French Open semi-finals last year, when he tore ligaments in his right ankle, but Zverev played down concerns that he had sustained serious damage.
“I didn’t twist my ankle,” he said. “I just slipped, in a way. I slipped through and maybe pinched my Achilles, my capsule a little bit. It was just that. Hopefully, it’s nothing too major and I can continue playing.”