Carlos Alcaraz has surprised some people by the way that he won the US Open.
Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner to win the US Open and lift his sixth Grand Slam title at 22 years old.
Not only has the Spaniard added to his Grand Slam collection, but Alcaraz has also returned to world number one in the ATP rankings.
Although it is not an unfamiliar sight to see Alcaraz winning a Grand Slam, the way that he did it was certainly notable to people including Naomi Osaka’s former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.
Patrick Mouratoglou says Carlos Alcaraz losing the Wimbledon final was ‘the best thing’ to happen to him
Alcaraz has a very impressive record in Grand Slam finals, winning all but one of them so far.
The only major final he was beaten in came when Sinner beat Alcaraz at Wimbledon in July.
While many would see this as a negative thing, Mouratoglou actually believes this was a positive thing for Alcaraz.
When reflecting on the US Open final in a video on his Instagram, Mouratoglou claimed that Wimbledon final enabled Alcaraz to improve in such a short space of time ahead of his next Grand Slam match with Sinner.
“I think this Wimbledon final was the best thing that happened to Carlos,” said Mouratoglou. “He had the feeling that Jannik was really overpowering him, was playing faster than him, that he had no solutions, and I think it was a wake-up call for him.
“Carlos spoke about it, his team spoke about it, he watched a lot of videos of Jannik, and I feel that he had a very clear idea about what to do, how to do it, and he knew by heart the type of tennis Jannik plays and how he plays, combination of shots, when the ball lands here, where he hits the ball, and he could read the game and he was there before.
“Carlos knew that he had to improve three things, the first one was his serve, the second one was the variety of his shots, and the third one was his attitude during the match. I know it can be shocking for people to think, ‘Wow in three weeks, how can you make such a change, such an improvement?’. But this is the difference between top, top, top level and the other ones.”
Mouratoglou has been vocal about Alcaraz’s service improvements, which saw him only get broken three times throughout the entire tournament.
Juan Carlos Ferrero said Carlos Alcaraz prepared to play Jannik Sinner weeks before the US Open final
Although Alcaraz had to overcome many other top ATP players at the US Open this year, it appears that the Wimbledon final defeat to Sinner really did impact his preparation for the New York major.
When speaking in his press conference after the final, Alcaraz’s coach Juan Carlos Ferrero revealed that they actually did specific things to play against Sinner for 15 days before the US Open.
“I think it was very important, because we maybe practised for 15 days, very focused on the details that we have to improve to play against Jannik,” Ferrero said.
“We know that in this kind of surface, on hard courts, Jannik is always very difficult to play and [is] winning a lot of matches. I think it helped a lot, because he realised what he has to improve a lot, and I was very focused on it.”
This preparation worked for Alcaraz, who continued his impressive record against Sinner and has now dethroned him at the top of the ATP rankings.
It seems very likely that they will have many more Grand Slam matches in the future, with Alcaraz and Sinner winning the last eight major titles.
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