Carlos Alcaraz will play the Wimbledon tournament for the second time, which takes place from June 27 to July 10. After his explosion this year, the name of the Spanish tennis player has slipped in among the contenders for everything, including the third Grand Slam of the season.
Despite this, Alcaraz is aware that grass is a surface on which he is not used to winning. That's why after losing his exhibition match against the American Frances Tiafoe he said that he "not at all" could be considered the favorite to win at the All England Club.
The Murcian's debut at Wimbledon will be against Jan Lennard Struff this Monday in the second shift on court number 1, not before 3:30 p.m., after the match between the Swedish Bjorklund and the Tunisian Jabeur. It will be broadcast on the channel
The rival is a tennis player ranked 158th in the ATP ranking who defeated him last year at Roland Garros 4-6, 6-7 (3) and 2-6 when the Murcian was number 97 on the international list and his rival 42. In addition, the 32-year-old German is an expert on this surface, although this season he has not performed at the expected level and is in low hours. It is the only precedent between the two.
Quite the opposite of his rival. Alcaraz, seventh in the world, has been uncovered and this season has won three titles: the tournament in Rio de Janeiro and the Masters 1000 in Miami and Madrid, all of them on clay. At 19 years old, he has already far surpassed what was done in the beginning by most of the greats of world tennis in Grand Slam tournaments, with the exception of what was achieved by Rafa Nadal.
Now he hopes to maintain that positive trend in the London tournament and make his debut with victory against Struff to add a 6 of 6 in his premieres in the "major" that he has played to date. The one from El Palmar met the draw for the draw on Friday and knows that if he continues to advance rounds, he would run into Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals. Jannik Sinner would wait for him in the second round and Casper Ruud or Hubert Hurkacz would wait for him in the quarterfinals.
Although comparisons with Nadal have been recurring since Alcaraz appeared on the circuit, the truth is that the player from Manacor is the only one of the tennis players who are up in the rankings who improves on the appearance of the player from Palma in his first Grand Slam tournaments.
The pupil of Juan Carlos Ferrero has had five victorious debuts in tournaments of this magnitude and his top is the quarterfinals that he reached both at the US Open in 2021 and at Roland Garros in 2022. In the third round he stayed at the Australian Open in 2022 and second at Wimbledon and in Australia last year.
That five out of five victorious in the premieres were far from being signed by most of the most brilliant rackets on the international scene. Nadal is well above everyone else in this particular classification and that is because the man from Manacor, who has 22 Grand Slam titles, has been in 64 final draws of this type of tournament and only fell in the first round twice.
Nadal, who in Grand Slam has a record of 305 wins and 41 losses, won his first major title at Roland Garros 2005 in his sixth appearance in a major, which is precisely what Alcaraz will face in London.
Roger Federer, with 20 Grand Slam titles and a record of 369 wins and 60 losses, lost in his first match in a final draw of this category. The one from Basel had to wait for his seventeenth presence in a Grand Slam to lift the trophy. It was at Wimbledon 2003, beating Australian Mark Philippoussis 7-6 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (3) in the final.
Something similar happened to Djokovic, also with 20 wounds and a 327-47. The Belgrade player won his first tournament of that level in his thirteenth appearance by beating Frenchman Jo Wilfred Tsonga 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (2) in Australia 2008.
