Carlos Alcaraz has admitted his focus has been lost in recent weeks and he needs to get it back quickly to avoid an alarming collapse in his ATP Ranking.
After his shock defeat against David Goffin in his first match at the Miami Open, Alcaraz missed out on a glorious chance to gain some valuable ranking points as he looks to protect his position in the top three of the ATP Rankings.
The concern for Alcaraz will be that the huge proportion of the ranking points current on his record come from his wins at the French Open and Wimbledon last summer, where he collected 4,000 ranking points.
Take those points from his record and Alcaraz would slide out of the top 10 of the ATP Rankings and that is a strong possibility given his recent form and comments.
Alcaraz will not be able to make any strides forward in the rankings in the next two Grand Slam events and can only lose points in those tournaments.
While he will have a chance to gain some ranking points in the European clay court season ahead of the second Grand Slam of the year at Roland Garros, the 21-year-old is in danger of sliding down the ATP list over the next few weeks.
His lacklustre performances in defeats against Jack Draper in Indian Wells and the veteran Goffin in Miami came after he publicly admitted he was ‘very nervous’ ahead of his defeat in the first of those two matches.
That led some to suggest Alcaraz made a mistake when he opened up on his vulnerabilities in a press conference and he did something similar after the loss against Goffin.
“Mentally, I’m screwed, to be honest,” said Alcaraz. “This is a tournament where I want to do well, and losing in the first round hurts a lot.
“I know this part of the season very well; I’ve played great tennis in the past at these tournaments, but after what happened today, I don’t really know what to say.
“I think I was feeling good after Indian Wells, but now with this loss, I don’t know what to say.
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He also admitted he was nervous prior to the Goffin match, but suggested that was a positive sign.
“I felt great, I was fine, just a little nervous as usual before every match, but nothing out of the ordinary in these types of situations, nothing I hadn’t felt before,” he added.
“I felt prepared, convinced I could put on a good level of tennis, but in the end it just wasn’t to be. I did everything right before the match; it wasn’t a question of an injury or any other pain; I was fine before the match.
“I did have the feeling after the first set that this match was going to be tougher than previous ones, then I started to feel a little more tired in my legs, especially at the end of the second set.”
Alcaraz’s incredible rise in tennis has been a story of relentless success so far, but now there are question marks over whether the youngster is vulnerable after a shaky start to 2025.
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The post Carlos Alcaraz facing huge threat of a rankings collapse unless he finds his best form appeared first on Tennis365.
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