"It’s a combination of everything": Carlos Alcaraz nearly stopped playing tennis earlier this season

Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz reveals that earlier this season, he was thinking about taking a break and stopping playing entirely.

Alcaraz is having a mixed season. The four-time Grand Slam winner struggled for the majority part but recently managed to return to his very best while playing on the clay-court. He lifted the Monte-Carlo Masters, which was his sixth ATP 1000 title, after beating Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti in the final with a score of 3-6, 6-1, 6-0.

Alcaraz, who is now taking part in the Barcelona Open where he has already cemented his spot in the round of 16 after beating America’s Ethan Quinn in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 7-6, has recently spoken to Spanish media outlet Marca as quoted by Tennis 365 where he revealed that he was thinking about taking a break from tennis earlier this season after having a hard time on the court. The reigning world number two stated that he wanted to ‘stop, sit down’ and evaluate where he was going wrong.

“It’s a combination of everything,” he said. “In Indian Wells, I thought I was playing well and was pretty calm off the court. The loss to Draper hurt me a lot. Then I got to Miami, and that loss to Goffin was the final straw,” he said. “We had to stop, sit down, and see what was happening. That moment has helped me a lot. It’s from bad times that we learn the most. I’ve learned, above all, to focus on what’s important. There are many things we give importance to that maybe aren’t. I said what’s truly important to me in tennis, and I’m going to continue along those lines In the end, in these situations, you think about a lot of things, and when something that hurt you is so recent, you never really put it into perspective,” the four-time Grand Slam winner said. A lot of thoughts come to mind: stop, stop for a week, skip a tournament, stop for several months, keep training, take a vacation, and then train for what’s next… A lot of thoughts came to mind, and one of the best things I did was take a few days off and give myself the opportunity to think clearly and put things into perspective, and then decide from there.”