Carlos Alcaraz compared favourably to Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer by Taylor Fritz after Miami meeting

Carlos Alcaraz compares favourably to tennis’s ‘Big Three’ of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, says Taylor Fritz.

Afterwards, Fritz was candid about how difficult he had found the encounter, and what makes current world No. 1 Alcaraz such a formidable opponent at this point in time.

“It’s not even what I saw [in the quarter-final match],” Fritz said. “It’s what I have seen for a while now.

“I said it a year ago when I watched him [Alcaraz] play, for how young he is, he just has all the tools. He can come to net, he can dropshot you, he can lob you, he’s incredibly fast, he has all the power, his forehand is good, his backhand is good.

“It’s very rare to see someone so young so… developed in their game and not really have anything that they need to work on so much.

“He has tons of different ways to play, and he can incorporate tons of different game plans to play different players because he has so many tools to win a match.

“I think that’s something that I wouldn’t say any of those people had at such a young age. There is always I guess things that people need to improve on.”

Fritz also shared a fascinating insight into why Alcaraz – remarkably – felt, to him, like a tougher opponent even than 22-time major winner Djokovic.

“I definitely felt like I had more breathing room against those guys [Djokovic, Nadal and Federer] than in this match,” Fritz said.

“I think that it’s different game styles.

“Novak will have these long rallies, but he’ll kind of slowly get you out of position and overwhelm me. I still feel like I can hang in these rallies for a long time and get more chances to attack.

“I think that I’d go back to the first couple games of the match. He [Alcaraz] just hits winners and shots that hurt me off of a lot of shots that people normally aren’t hurting me off of – definitely less.

“I just felt he was more offensive and pressed me a lot more.

“I did feel the level of the first three games was absolutely unbearable. He was hitting clean winners off of 110-mile-an-hour second serves I was hitting into his body. I’m stepping up and crushing backhands cross, and he’s going open-stance backhand line winners off of that.

“That wasn’t the level for the rest of the match. I was able to settle in much more, and he wasn’t doing that the whole match.

“But he obviously possesses that level, and for those first couple of games, it was pretty overwhelming.”

– – –