Carlos Alcaraz makes ‘rest’ admission as busy schedule starts to take its toll
Carlos Alcaraz barely had any chance to recover from the Monte Carlo Masters final as two days after finishing runner-up, he was back in action at the Barcelona Open.
It has been a tough couple of days for Alcaraz as he not only had to process losing in straight sets against Jannik Sinner at the ATP Masters 1000 final, but he also lost the world No 1 ranking to the Italian.
And there was no time to process what had happened as he had to travel back to Spain for the ATP 500 tournament as his first-round match was scheduled for 48 hours later.
In fact, the first time he managed to spend some time on the courts was on the morning of his match against Otto Virtanen.
A few hours later, the Spaniard was back in action and, although he managed to beat the 130th-ranked Virtanen 6-4, 6-2, he struggled to find his rhythm and also had an injury scare.
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The top seed will next be in action on Thursday as he will face Tomas Machac for a place in the quarter-final and he revealed “my plan is to rest if necessary, but the main goal is to try to be in the best possible shape to play”.
The seven-time Grand Slam winner also played down the “discomfort” he felt during the Virtane match during his post-match press conference, but then admitted that he probably should not be playing this week.
“I’m not afraid to say that maybe this week is the one where I should rest,” he explained. “We played a Masters 1000 tournament the first week, then we have Madrid and Rome and then Roland Garros.
“This week is the one where I should take a break, but Barcelona is a very special place for me.”
The second clay-court Masters event, the Madrid Open, gets underway on 22 April, and if Alcaraz reaches the latter stages of the Barcelona Open, there will once again be very little time to rest.
Alcaraz skipped last year’s event in the Spanish capital due to injury and it remains to be seen if he will play after a busy couple of weeks.
He will then defend his Italian Open title with the Rome event running from 6-17 May before the French Open, where he is once again the defending champion, starts on 24 May.
Meanwhile, his rival Sinner has opted for a break after winning the Monte Carlo title as he is not in action in Barcelona or the BMW Open in Munich, while he has also suggested he could skip the Madrid Open.
