Casper Ruud has highlighted an important aspect of rival Carlos Alcaraz’s game that has changed and helped the 20-year-old play more freely than before.
Alcaraz’s high-intensity game has allowed him to win a lot of matches over the past two years but lately there have been suggestion that he sometimes gets carried away with the blistering shot-making that proves counter-productive.
ATP #8 has been on receiving end of some of the crazy hard hitting by the 2-time Grand Slam champion who has defeated him in all of their four matches. Recently, they went head-to-head at the China Open and Alcaraz won 6-4, 6-2.
Rudd was asked to pick highlight the difference between the Spaniard’s game and he me made some interesting observations.
“I think he’s more mature. He seems a little bigger, a little stronger physically,” he told Barbara Schett on Eurosport’s Ruud Talk.
“Obviously, he plays so aggressive and so great, but sometimes it seems like he might beat himself a little. He goes for almost too much, at least in my eyes.
“I am not going to criticize him any more than this, because he’s a great player. But sometimes when you hit all these crazy shots, it’s kind of tempting to go for an even crazier one. But I think he’s understood that most matches won’t be won by playing crazy shot after crazy shot.
“It’s more about stability, and I think he’s playing more calmly than before, and that can be dangerous when you have the strength and power combined with the cleverness on court we’ve seen this year. It’s a great combo.”
Alcaraz’s ultra-attacking game won him the US Open last year but the all-action style took some toll at this year’s Roland Garros when the nervous energy cramped up his whole body during the semifinal clash against Novak Djokovic.
The 24-time champion after the match also admitted that playing big at biggest stages could cause these kind of problems.
“Respect for him for hanging in there until the last point, really. It was obvious that he was struggling with his movement,” the Serbian said.
“It’s unfortunate for the crowd, it’s unfortunate for the match of this importance for both of us, but that’s sport. It happens when you play on extremely high intensity as we both did I think for the first two sets.”
“But it’s a part of the learning curve. It’s part of the experience. He’s only 20”, added Djokovic.
A few months later completed the predicted learning curve and despite the crazy shot-making stuff recorded a marvelous 5-set victory in the Wimbledon final. However, after the recent losses at US Open, and back to setback at the Asian hard swing, it looks that the ATP #2 seed will review his game to further tone down his crazy hitting and tweak the touch.