A two-speed Zverev, Alcaraz’s obstacle in search of the master semifinal

He confirms with the discretion that characterizes the doctor from Alcaraz, Juanjo López from Murcia: “Yes, Carlos is better.” And the improvement in the training hour is obvious, in which the tennis player, who will play today (2:00 p.m., Movistar+) against Alexander Zverev and will trust that the outcome of Ruud-Rublev (8:30 p.m.) will also accompany him, He moves with a touch more confidence than in previous rehearsals and looks better. Everything will be needed to reduce the giant, who parades through the Inalpi Arena with that slow trot and at the same time with a pending score with himself: another year disappears, 27 already on his ID, and he still has no great in the showcase. Trophies abound, two this year and 23 in total, but he still hasn’t climbed the final step or reached the peak that was imagined when he began to leave a mark on the circuit.

The one from Hamburg reasoned upon his arrival in Turin, where he aspires to be crowned master for the third time after the episodes of 2018 and 2021. The tendency to become entangled in the first seasons. “At the beginning of the Grand Slams I play very long matches, unnecessary five-set matches against players against whom perhaps it should not be that way, and that in the end weighs on me. Here, on the other hand, I know that if I don’t play my best tennis from the first point, I will have no chance of winning. Maybe it has to do with that mentality and the fact of being able to transfer it to the Grand Slams,” explained the world number two, winner this season in Rome and Bercy, also a regular at the final stages of the tournaments; He fails, however, that definitive blow that the legendary Roger Federer attributes to a lack of aggressiveness.

“That’s nothing that I don’t already know, because that’s how it is,” he admits after a rather weak autumn – conditioned by the pneumonia that affected him in mid-September – which he corrected suddenly in Bercy, with the blow of a hammer. Before that last success, two disappointing steps through Shanghai and Vienna. That is, a double gear Zverev. “It’s difficult to be number one without winning a big one. I’m number two, but I’m 3,000 points behind Jannik [Sinner]”, he remembers, hurt by those two finals that escaped him in 2020, in New York, and this year at Roland Garros, precisely against Alcaraz. In any case, the German emerges again as a major opponent who leads the wins section this year – 68, the same as the Italian – and whose service continues to be differential in the indoor setting.

However, Turin has little to do with Bercy, or even with Turin itself. The eight teachers have been forced these days to adapt to a substantial change of surface and if in Bercy the ball was fired like a shot, in this one the reduction in speed is significant. He Court Pace Index (CPI) – a system used to classify the speed of the tracks – assigns 38.3 points to the Italian, compared to the 46.6 attributed to the French, the fastest on the circuit; and Indian Wells (36.9), Miami (35.4), Cincinnati (43), Montreal (37.8) and Shanghai (42.4), the other references on dura apart from the majorsare below, in some cases very far. It is also striking that this year’s Turin track has slowed down significantly compared to the last two editions: 43.2 in 2022 and 43.8 in 2023.

Standardization

“It’s crazy, I don’t know why they did it like that. I don’t know why they have changed so much from one tournament to another and in the same tournament compared to other years,” Alcaraz protested upon leaving Bercy. “Here you have to work on the points more, the track is slower,” he commented after beating Andrey Rublev. And by “slow”, the Murcian meant that it is more controllable, something that does not seem to cause cold or heat to his rival today, capable of adapting to both registers. “It’s very slow, too slow for an indoor track. But I’m not complaining because I like slow ones and fast ones; I really don’t care too much. Today the different styles are being lost and dirt and hard courts are more or less the same, they have been standardized; the speed is very similar, with the exception of Cincinnati and Paris-Bercy,” says Zverev.

The German stem searches and searches for that jump that does not arrive, sandwiched by the three giants first, Djokovic, Nadal and Federer blocking his way, and now Sinner and Alcaraz. “They are the two best, I must improve; They do some things better than me. “You can’t stagnate,” he imposes. With an enviable resume, at the level of a top-level competitor, he nevertheless remains embedded in that group of magnificent players who did not achieve glory in a major. There is the example of Marcelo Ríos, in his day number one and unable to succeed beyond a Masters 1000. The Chilean left with five, for the 10 that he already manages, an expert in the thousandsthe master territory and with an Olympic gold in his record, but still without the bite he so longs for. Maybe in 2025.