Carlos Alcaraz has to make a mental adjustment to get over the hangover that is winning a Grand Slam title believes tennis analyst, Gill Gross.
Alcaraz has not won a tournament since Wimbledon and was surprisingly beaten in particular by Tommy Paul in Toronto, folded against Novak Djokovic in Cincinnati before not defending the US Open losing to Daniil Medvedev.
He then went to Asia with the mission of becoming World No.1, only to lose to Jannik Sinner and Grigor Dimitrov in the latter stages and will now take a short break from the sport ahead of a busy end to the year.
"There’s a mental adjustment that I think needs to be made. We talk about this with players who achieve really big things and have these big breakthrough results. There is often a hangover as a result of something like that happening," Gross said (via the Monday Match Analysis podcast).
"I’ve seen a lot of focus issues for Alcaraz. I would not give him high marks in focus, which is such a big thing mentally for tennis players. It is such an important attribute. It is under-discussed," he added.
"You could say ‘Gill how do you know that it’s focus and not just he started playing worse?’ And my response to that is when the scoreboard suggests that you’ve reached a moment in a match where there could be a loss of focus and time and time again, Alcaraz responds with a dip in his level," he stated.
"An example, in Cincinnati, he’s up 5-2 against Hurkacz in the third set and completely just gets sloppy. Or he’s up a set and a break against Djokovic, who is not doing well physically… he [Carlos Alcaraz] throws in a terrible game at 4-2. I believe it was in the second [set]," Gross explained.