It is not easy to go under the radar after the kind of season that Carlos Alcaraz has compiled. Four titles in four months, victories over Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, and a place in the world’s top 10 tend to attract a certain amount of attention, especially when you’re only 19 years old.
Yet for Alcaraz, who continued his quiet progress through the top half of the draw with an emphatic 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 win over Germany’s Oscar Otte, this year’s Wimbledon represents an opportunity that is unlikely to come around again.
Six weeks ago, the Spaniard went into the French Open as a favourite for the title alongside Djokovic and Nadal. Alexander Zverev, beaten by Alcaraz three weeks earlier in the Madrid Open final, had other ideas, snuffing out a late fightback to deny the teenager a semi-final berth and remind him that upsetting the apple cart in grand slam combat is a whole different ball game.
An elbow injury subsequently prevented Alcaraz from competing at Queen’s, dampening the sense of expectation as he came into Wimbledon, and when he barely survived a five-set epic against Jan-Lennard Struff in the opening round, the noise surrounding him quietened further. Alcaraz has yet to play on Centre Court, and the relative anonymity he has enjoyed as a result has given him space to find his feet gradually on a surface of which he has little experience. Through to the fourth round for the first time, but almost certainly not the last, it is a luxury he is unlikely to be afforded in the future.
“Every match, you can play unbelievable or you can play your worst match,” said Alcaraz. “On Monday was my first match on grass, it was really tough. Struff played unbelievable. In four or five days, the training, the matches, you learn how to play more on grass, how to move more on grass.
“Of course, in the early matches you play against different players, and maybe one player is tougher to you and another player is easier, let’s say. Now I feel more comfortable playing on grass.
“I am more comfortable to move on grass right now than [in] the first round, for example. Every training, every match that I play, I feel more comfortable. I hope that in the next round I feel more comfortable [still]. Every day that I pass I feel more ready.”
Otte will vouch for that. The 28-year-old German, a semi-finalist in Halle and Stuttgart, is no slouch on grass – as he demonstrated last year when he pushed former champion Andy Murray all the way to a deciding set in a late-night thriller on Centre Court. Here, he was blown away by a relentless tide of haymaker forehands, big serves and peerless athleticism. It was a performance that made a nonsense of Alcaraz’s pre-tournament suggestion that he is not yet ready to win on grass.
“I played unbelievable today,” said Alcaraz. “This was my best performance so far. So I’m really happy with the level, and I will try to keep this level into the next round.”
That could spell bad news for Jannik Sinner, the Italian 10th seed, who came through 6-4, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 against John Isner. Alcaraz won his only previous meeting with Sinner, at the Paris Masters last November, in two tight sets. Do so again and he is likely to play defending champion Novak Djokovic, who was once again in imperious form as he brushed aside his Serbian countryman Miomir Kecmanovic 6-0, 6-3, 6-4.
“I think I’ve been playing better and better as the tournament progresses,” said Djokovic. “It’s something that you always wish for as a player, that every match you play you raise the level of the matches up a notch at least. And I think that is what is happening at the moment.”
It is a sentiment Alcaraz will appreciate only too well.