Alex Corretja recently spoke of
Carlos Alcaraz's energy on the
ATP Tour, saying that "it is difficult to slow down" the young player but that this is not a problem for him right now.
20-year-old Alcaraz has had a largely successful season, having won his second Grand Slam title at Wimbledon where he defeated Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller of a final. He also spent a lot of time as World No. 1 before being bumped down to No. 2 courtesy of Djokovic's victory at the US Open.
The Spaniard recently competed at the
China Open in Beijing, where he made it to the semi-finals before being defeated by Jannik Sinner. He then proceeded to suffer a surprisingly early exit at the
Shanghai Masters last week, crashing out of his Round of 16 match against Grigor Dimitrov.
Corretja shares thoughts on Alcaraz's energy
While some have attributed Alcaraz's early exit in Shanghai to fatigue following a busy year in which he has played 72 matches, Corretja defended him.
"It is difficult to slow down a boy like Carlos. He is so powerful and young and he has the motivation to grab everything there is to grab. His team knows that too, but he doesn't like taking a step back and waiting and training at home. They are now trying to find a balance between playing tournaments and training.
"At the same time, he is so young and fresh that he wants to play tournaments himself. After five or ten days of training, he might get bored. Maybe he gets motivation from playing matches. They deal with the calendar in the best possible way and they become wiser with every tournament," Corretja said.
The Spanish former player added that, by playing so many tournaments, Alcaraz and his team were able to learn what will help him to get the best results out of a season.
"It's different than when you're 28 or 30 and you already know exactly what you want. If you're still developing, that's different. Alcaraz just wants to play and score points. win. He has the desire to end the year as number 1 in the world and he is open about that.
"Therefore, I don't think it is a worrying situation, but rather a learning process. He has already had a great season back and he now just wants to finish as high as possible," he continued.
