Daniil Medvedev identifies reason behind Carlos Alcaraz’s recent struggles

Daniil Medvedev isn’t really surprised to see Carlos Alcaraz losing to Alexander Zverev at the ATP Finals as the Russian feels the Spaniard has been “playing slower” and “does not have the same confidence” that he had earlier this year.

After suffering a Shanghai Masters round-of-16 defeat and also shockingly losing in the Paris Masters second round, Alcaraz also failed to make a positive start in Turin after Zverev handed him a 6-7 (3) 6-3 6-4 loss. After Wimbledon, Alcaraz had six titles in 10 tournaments played on the year.

Since Wimbledon, Alcaraz has gone six consecutive tournaments without winning a title. “If you would ask me two, three months ago, for sure. Tennis is a very, very tricky sport. At this moment, for whatever reason, we feel that Carlos plays just a little bit slower.

He doesn’t have the same confidence he had throughout the whole year. This can happen to everyone. This even happened to Novak when he was younger. The question is, how fast is he going to recover. Is it going to be this tournament or next year,” Medvedev said.

Medvedev not surprised Alcaraz lost to Medvedev

In the first set, Zverev was up by a break before Alcaraz came back to steal the opener from the German. After losing the opener, Zverev broke Alcaraz in the second game of the second set and then held on to his service for the remainder of the set to send the match into a decider.

One break of serve was also enough for Zverev in the third set, who broke Alcaraz in the fifth game before serving out for a comeback win in the 10th game. “When he lost the second set, they showed the speed of the strokes, groundstrokes.