Carlos Alcaraz’s most under-rated weapon is evident when you watch him courtside

Carlos Alcaraz has been hailed for boasting more variety in his game than any other player in the modern game, but one big shot in his armory is rarely mentioned.

Tennis365 has been privileged to have courtside seats at the Queen’s Club over the last few days to watch a compelling HSBC Championships taking place under a baking London sun.

Top seed Alcaraz won his first match since the epic five-set triumph over Jannik Sinner in the French Open final earlier this month as he eased past plucky opponent Adam Walton 6-4, 7-6(4).

Tennis365 also had courtside seats to watch him during his French Open matches and seeing the five-time Grand Slam champion in practice also offers revealing insight into why he is enjoying so much quick-fire success.

Yet one element of his game is under-rated and that is his second serve, which proved to be highly effective in his wins against Sinner in Paris and his opening match in London against Walton.

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In what was a tight opening match on grass for Wimbledon champion Alcaraz in 2025, he still managed to win an impressive 75 per-cent of his second serve points.

Add in the 86 per-cent of first serve points he also won and it is easy to understand why Walton struggled to get close to the world No 2 despite his solid performance in front of a sell-out crowd.

Walton did have two break points in that match, but they were saved by Alcaraz and it was clear that the 22-year-old’s second serve was rocking the Australian onto the back foot at a moment when he would have been keen to press the attack button.

In total, Alcaraz won 82 per-cent of his service points and got 68 per-cent of his first serves in, with these stats confirming there are very few holes in Alcaraz’s game as he edges towards the defence of his Wimbledon title in a tournament that gets underway later this month.

Alcaraz can still improve and the same goes for Sinner, with former world No 1 Mat Wilander suggesting the levels they are producing right now are already taking the game to the next level.

While he stops short of claiming the new ‘Big 2’ in men’s tennis are better than Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, Wilander told us that they are moving to a standard that we have not seen in tennis.

“It feels to me like this is another level we are seeing from Sinner and Alcaraz,” Wilander told Tennis365. “It doesn’t mean that they are better than Federer at his best, or Nadal and Djokovic at their best.

“Maybe they make more mistakes, but the game is faster. They make more mistakes than Djokovic and Nadal when they were at their best and that’s why it’s so hard to compare the different eras.

“You need to bring Nadal’s mindset into this discussion. You need to bring in Djokovic’s ability to figure out what is going on and give what they don’t want.

“That’s why I like Novak hanging around and trying to test himself against these guys and they will get better, don’t worry about that.

“The reason I say this is Alcaraz is such a complete player and he has so many options every time he plays a shot.

“I remember Roger Federer saying, ‘yeah, of course Lleyton Hewitt will have more success than me to start with because he is one-dimensional compared to me and doesn’t have all the shots’. Carlos is like that.

“This is why Jannik is ranked No 1 in the world because he doesn’t have so much variety and therefore he is more consistent. It’s more of a straightforward game for Jannik.

“Both of them are now at the top of the game and everything has gone so fast for them over the last 24 months.

“They have been winning majors, getting to world No 1, starting a new era in tennis in many ways.

“It’s really hard to predict what will come next, but we can say that the versions of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in 2030 will be much better than what we see today… and that is a scary thought.”

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