Carlos Alcaraz suffers a tough defeat against Van de Zandschulp and says goodbye to the US Open | La Verdad

In his heaviest defeat at a Grand Slam, Carlos Alcaraz suffered a surprising elimination in the second round of the US Open at the hands of Dutchman Botic Van de Zandschulp, world number 74. The Murcia native was overcome by his emotions and by Van de Zandschulp’s tennis in a state of grace until he fell to his knees 6-1, 7-5 and 6-4 to the astonishment of the thousands of spectators on the central court at Flushing Meadows.

The El Palmar native had won 15 consecutive matches in Grand Slam tournaments and was hoping to become the third tennis player to achieve victories at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open, after Rafael Nadal (2010) and Rod Laver (1969).

The streak was shattered on a fateful night when he fell to Van de Zandschulp, a player without ATP titles and with the quarter-finals of the US Open in 2021 as his best result in a Grand Slam. “It was a fight against myself. In tennis you play against someone who wants the same thing as you, to win the match, but today in my mind I was playing against the opponent and against myself. There were many emotions that I couldn’t control,” Alcaraz acknowledged in an exercise of self-criticism in the press room.

The last time Juan Carlos Ferrero’s protégé bowed out in the second round of a major tournament was in 2021, the year he began competing in the main draws, against Daniil Medvedev at Wimbledon.

The US Open is also a very special stage for Alcaraz. It was on the New York court where he won his first Grand Slam in 2022 and became the youngest number one in history. On this occasion, the unconditional support of the Flushing Meadows public did not help him recover from his emotional exhaustion, after a dream summer where he managed to lift Roland Garros, Wimbledon and a silver medal at the Paris Olympic Games.

Lack of strength

“The tennis schedule is very tight. I took a little break after the Games and I thought it was enough but I probably came here without as much energy as I thought,” said Alcaraz after suffering a defeat in a match that he will surely want to erase from his memory as soon as possible.

After his victories at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, “I thought I had taken a step forward. To win big things you have to be mentally tough, but I came to this tour and I took steps backwards,” he said. “Mentally I’m not well, I’m not strong, I don’t know how to control myself when faced with problems and that’s a problem,” he said days after leaving an image that surprised everyone at the Cincinnati Masters 1000, where he broke his racket in defeat against Gael Monfils in a photograph that perhaps represents the mental exhaustion that the player from El Palmar suffers.

A beginning to forget

The first alarm bells rang in New York when Alcaraz surrendered the first set in just 31 minutes, without hitting a single winner, against a very confident Van de Zandschulp on serve and return. “I had a lot of confidence from the last match, in which I played very solidly, and today from the first shot I believed I had a chance,” said the Dutchman.

In the second set, the Murcian recovered his sensations and, after several brilliant finishes, he gave a glimpse of a smile. The public was ready to embark on the comeback but Alcaraz’s game was still unrecognizable and Van de Zandschulp maintained his enormous effectiveness.

With a double fault, the first of the match, Alcaraz gave the Dutchman the decisive break to take the second set. The player from El Palmar was forced to come back from two sets down for the first time in his career, after seven failed attempts.

Carlitos made several attempts to come back in the third set, with points that woke up the fans as midnight approached, but they were not enough to change the dynamic of the match. Van de Zandschulp kept his cool and efficiency until causing an earthquake in the last Grand Slam of the season, where Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner remain the big favourites to win.