Alcaraz & the nerves of playing at Wimbledon

It’s Friday afternoon, Wimbledon’s Centre Court is saying goodbye to Carlos Alcaraz with an ebullient standing ovation. But they will only have to wait until Sunday, when he will cross swords with Novak Djokovic for the title, to see him again. As he makes his way to the locker room, the 21-year-old leaves behind him all the nerves that come with a semi-final clash against Daniil Medvedev, and that normally accompany him when he sets foot on one of the most prestigious stages in world sport.

However, those nerves can be positive if they are channelled in the right direction, and Alcaraz is well aware of that.

“At Roland Garros maybe I didn’t talk about the nerves, although they were obviously there,” explained the Spaniard after seeing off Medvedev in four sets. “Maybe I controlled them a little better at that tournament, except in the final… They affected me a bit there, above all in the first sets.

“Wimbledon, playing on centre court, it makes me a little more nervous because of everything it means; because of the way I see the tournament and the centre court, maybe differently to how I see others,” said Alcaraz of the season’s third Grand Slam. “It’s something we’re working on: obviously nerves are very good and very necessary if they are under control, but when you lose control of them a bit, or you don’t know how to manage them, they work against you. Today, maybe in the first set I struggled a bit, even though I played good tennis and played well. Maybe that’s what I was lacking to be able to win it: handling the nerves a little better, which I did much better in the other three sets.”

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Wimbledon is a special tournament, there is no doubt, and Alcaraz is clearly besotted with an event he has played in four times, reaching the final on two of those occasions (2023 and 2024).

“Since I started the tournament I haven’t thought about the fact that I’m the defending champion,” said Alcaraz. “The only goal has been to get better every day.”

On Sunday, as he vies to keep Djokovic’s hands off his crown (the Serb leads their Lexus ATP Head2Head 3-2), Alcaraz will no doubt be feeling the butterflies in his stomach, but he will know what to do with them in order to convert them into the energy required if he is to defeat Nole at Wimbledon once again.

Easier said than done.

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