Rennae
Stubbs criticized
Carlos Alcaraz for pumping up the crowd during his match
against
Novak Djokovic at the 2023
French Open.
The former
tennis player expressed her disagreement with the Spanish player's attitude in
the semifinals of Roland Garros. After equalizing the match in the second set,
the young star celebrated by pumping his arms to the crowd.
"We
all knew the match was going to be the semifinals, and Alcaraz learned a very
big lesson about when you go into these matches, you have to be able to control
your nerves, your anxiety level, your stress, your fist pumping," Stubbs
said.
The
commentator didn’t like Alcaraz's attitude, considering that he was celebrating
too early, especially since he had only tied the match 1-1 in sets.
"Even
when he won the second set, he double-pumped to the crowd with his arms in the
air. My first immediate thought when he did that was, 'What are you doing.'
Like, yes, that's a big set, yes, it's a great achievement, but man, you've got
to win two more of those against this guy."
Stubbs
emphasized the importance of the Spanish player maintaining composure in
crucial moments and compared it to ‘Nole’s’ ability to hanle such situations:
“So you’ve
got to calm down, bring all the levels down, like everything, you’ve got to
bring it all down. That’s what Novak does better than anybody. He’s able to
manage a five set match. Even when he’s not playing well, you see him just be
like ‘I’m going to be fine,’ and Alcaraz has to learn that, how to handle that
moment.”