Carlos Alcaraz explained the mental challenges he overcame during the French Open final.
The Spaniard was faced with several obstacles throughout his campaign in Paris, such as an arm injury and having to from behind to win.
The 21-year-old did a stellar job of overcoming the adversity in his way to win Roland Garros for the first time in his career.
This marks the third Grand Slam of Alcaraz’s career and he has once again ascended to the World number two ranking after his success.
Carlos Alcaraz overcame some doubts to win his first French Open title
At such a young age, Alcaraz has shown his mental fortitude in pressure moments and he illustrated this during the French Open. After claiming the first set in Sunday’s championship match against Alexander Zverev, he found himself down two sets to one after relinquishing a 5-3 lead in set three.
The German was on top, but after taking a medical time out, Alcaraz refocused and raised his level to take sets four and five for the loss of just three games. After his 6-3 2-6 5-7 6-1 6-2 win, the three-time major winner spoke to Eurosport and shared how he turned the match back in his favour.
“Honestly, when I finished the third set I had a lot of doubts. I’m not going to lie,” Alcaraz began. “I felt that my shots didn’t cause trouble to Sacha, I thought he was dominating the game with his serve.
“It was difficult for me. It doesn’t matter that he had the serve to win the third set, but with the nerves I didn’t play my best tennis in the third set. But we were in the final of the grand slam so it was the time to give everything and find solutions.
“Starting the fourth set helped me find relief a little bit, finding my style and my game and then in the fifth set it was time to give everything that I had inside.”
What were Carlos Alcaraz’s clay-court results this season?
Alcaraz had an excellent ending to a clay court season in which he played just four matches before commencing his Roland Garros campaign.
He was unable to play at the Monte Carlo and Barcelona events due to injury, while an arm issue hampered him at the Madrid Open, where he suffered a surprise loss to Andrey Rublev who claimed the title in the Spanish capital.
Entering the French Open with some uncertainty around his form and fitness, Alcaraz lost just one set on the way to reaching semi-finals, where he came from behind to beat Jannik Sinner.
The same was asked of Alcaraz when he found himself two sets to one down against Zverev, before storming back to become the first man in the open era to win his first three Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces.
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