Carlos Alcaraz was handed a shock opening round defeat at the Paris Masters and the Spaniard admitted that he needs to improve a lot.
Alcaraz skipped the Swiss Indoors in Basel and was playing for the first time since he was upset by Grigor Dimitrov in the R16 clash at the Shanghai Masters when he fell to the ATP #45 Roman Safiullin on Tuesday.
After recovering from the foot and back problems, the 20-year-old was expected to make a strong return. However, he looked rusty and never looked confident to Safiullin from registering a 6-3, 6-4 victory in the R2 of Paris-Bercy.
So how did Alcaraz rate his performance?
“I just didn’t feel well on the court,” he said. “A lot of things to improve, a lot of things to practice. I didn’t move well. In the shots, I think I had a good quality of shots. But physically in the part of movement, I have to improve a lot.”
Last year the Murcia-native was knocked out of the quarters in the tournament while his record since this year’s US Open is quiet unimpressive as per his own standards as he also fell in the semifinal of the China Open to post a 7-3 record since winning his second Grand Slam title in Wimbledon back in July.
When quizzed about his struggles at the final Masters 1000 of the year, the 2-time Major winner, responded: “I don’t know. Probably the season has been so, so long. Probably that affects my game.
“I think this tournament has a lot of surprise. I don’t know, because if it’s, you know, the end of the season, players are tired.
“But talking about myself, I don’t know, honestly. I have to figure out and I’ll try to the next years to be better in this part of the year.”
Alcaraz will have the final chance to finish the season on high note at ATP year-end final championships as he is roped in among the ATP top 7 due to compete at the ATP Finals scheduled to get underway on November 13.
And the world No. 2 know he has to pull his act together heading in to the next week Finals to challenge the best in the business.
“I have time before the ATP Finals, a lot of days of practice to be able to reach that level, the level that I want to play,” he said.
“But right now I’m not in the right time to talk. Honestly after the loss, I have to take some time, you know, before thinking about the next days, you know, and the days that what I have to do or what I’m gonna do, you know.
“But obviously before the ATP Finals begun, we have time.”