Carlos Alcaraz has had an extremely successful season so far, so it’s no wonder that he’s a big favourite to win the French Open and is therefore a big threat to the likes of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
These top players will be looking to add to their tally of Grand Slam titles, but they will have to see off the young Spaniard if they have any chance of winning at Roland Garros and player turned coach Alex Corretja doesn’t think it’ll be an easy task.
Alcaraz has already beaten the Serbian and the 21 time Grand Slam champion this season on his way to winning the Madrid Open and he has a lot of momentum leading up to Roland Garros despite missing out on the Rome Masters in order to get in a break before the major tournament.
“They know that he’s got unbelievable potential, they know that he’s dangerous, they saw him play and they played against him and they felt how difficult it is to play against him. They’ve got so much experience and so much knowledge of the game to understand anyone,” Corretja, who is working with Warner Bros. Discovery during the French Open, said.
“They know Alcaraz is going to be super difficult to beat at Roland Garros because he’s young, he’s coming with a win (in Madrid) behind him, pushing him, pushing him so much. It feels like he is going to be very aggressive and if someone wants to beat Alcaraz they know they will need to run and suffer like crazy.
“The only chance I see is that they beat him because they’ve got more experience. If not, Alcaraz is younger, he doesn’t have any feeling of pressure right now because everything is new and I think he’s going to be very difficult to beat. I don’t think he should be the top favourite because I think Djokovic and especially Nadal, if he recovers well from his foot, they should have the advantage.”
The French Open gets underway from today, with Djokovic playing Yoshihito Nishioka tomorrow in his opening round, Nadal faces Jordan Thompson tomorrow and Alcaraz takes on Juan Ignacio Londero later today.