Carlos Alcaraz tries to dispel the doubts
After his loss to David Goffin, the Spaniard was as vocally disgusted by his performance as many of us could remember.
“How do I feel? Dreadful,” he asked and answered himself. “The first part of the season, I was feeling good, but after this defeat… I don’t know what to say.”
For the first time since 2021, Alcaraz will come into the clay season without a title in either Indian Wells or Miami. While he’s the defending champion at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, his inconsistency has cost him in best-of-three events. On the plus side, this will be the first time he has made it to Monte Carlo since 2022—he has only played one match at the tournament, an opening-round loss to Sebastian Korda.
Read More: Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev, two Sunshine Double stalwarts, made opening exits in Miami
Which means, hopefully, this will feel like a new start, where he’ll have little to lose. He’ll be back on his favorite surface; he’ll have a chance to finally win a match in Monte Carlo; and he won’t have points to defend.
As I wrote above, Alcaraz’s matches here will come with implications for his title defense in Paris. But he’s one guy who may want to forget about the Slams, and their more-forgiving best-of-five format, for a little while and concentrate on keeping his level as high as possible, for as long as possible, in best-of-three.
Alcaraz is in the same quarter as Rublev, and will play either Fabio Fognini or Francisco Cerundolo to start.
