Former world number one Andy Roddick believes Spain’s young tennis sensation Carlos Alcaraz has a lot of work to do on his serve.
The 20-year-old is often regarded as one of the most highly-rated players currently playing in the men’s singles category alongside Italy’s Jannik Sinner.
He made a name for himself after winning Wimbledon last season when he defeated legendary Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in the final in a five-set thriller with a score of 1–6, 7–6(8–6), 6–1, 3–6, 6–4.
However, after that, not much went right for Alcaraz and things did not improve in the recently concluded Australian Open as well where he was knocked out after losing in the quarterfinal to Germany’s Alexander Zverev with a score of 6-1, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4.
Roddick was recently quoted in a report where he suggested that Alcaraz’s serve leaves a lot to be desired.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be super smooth sailing,” he said. “I think the tournaments that are coming up, obviously Indian Wells is a great surface for him because the ball jumps up and away, that’s gonna give him some love on the kick serve,” the 2003 US Open winner said.
“I think his serve leaves a lot to be desired. That is the one thing that I don’t think has really improved much at all in the last two years. I remember watching him, kinda his breakout – we knew about him – but winning Miami a couple of years ago and he was serving 135, and now I feel like he’s serving 127.
“There’s not a lot of motion to it, right? There are big servers, who serve straight through the court. And so, they’re are the type of servers that serve 136, but if you get a racket on it, you can square it up a little bit.
“And then there’s like the Roger [Federer] type servers that can serve 118 and the ball’s sliding against your racket and it just feels a little bit squirrely – so where you’re kind of hitting foul balls off the serve.
“Alcaraz, if he’s not hitting that kick serve – that’s getting you up and away and out of the zone – it feels like people are able to firm up his first serve when he goes after it. You need to create a little motion on that serve, he needs to create a little it of tail.
“Especially with how good he is on that first ball and how much he can bully you. Right now, even his slice serve feels like it kind of goes straight. It doesn’t have that like ]Pete] Sampras swing on it where it’s tailing away from you and you’re kind of having to chase it. It’s like, if you read it right, you can kind of square it up and get that good pop sound to it. So I think the serve is the most obvious place to improve with Alcaraz.”
15 – With 15 straight GS wins on hard court vs opponents ranked outside the ATP’s top 20, Carlos Alcaraz has surpassed Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro for the longest such streak among U21 players since 1973. Streak.#AusOpen | @AustralianOpen @carlosalcaraz @atptour pic.twitter.com/mpZEFBa9hU
— OptaAce (@OptaAce) January 18, 2024
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