Carlos Alcaraz reveals brutal truth about his form at the Miami Open

Alcaraz lost in the quarterfinals in Miami.
Megan Briggs/GettyImages
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Just when tennis fans might have felt safe to believe that Carlos Alcaraz should win every tournament he enters, the Spaniard was taken out in dominant fashion by Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals of the Miami Open. Sure, no player is going to win every event, but we might expect Alcaraz to do so. Dimitrov, however, made sure that was not going to happen.

In fact, Dimitrov has defeated Alcaraz the last two times they have played. And he hasn't just done so seemingly luckily, the Bulgarian has looked like the better player. On Thursday, Dimitrov struck brilliant winners from all manner of angles and had Alcaraz off balance for most of the match. If this had been a boxing match, the bout would have been stopped a couple of rounds early.

For instance, on the final point of the first set, Alcaraz was so lost and left guessing as to what Dimitrov might do next that he allowed a winner to go untouched almost directly down the middle of the court with the Spaniard just a few feet away. If no one knew who the number two ranked player on the ATP tour was before the match, they might have guessed it was Dimitrov while watching him win.

Carlos Alcaraz said he felt like a young teen playing Grigor Dimitrov

Alcaraz also had the perfect phrase post-match for how he felt his form was against Dimitrov. The Spaniard told the press, "I have a lot of frustrations right now, because he made me feel like I’m 13 years old. You know, it was crazy. I was talking to my team saying that I don’t know what I have to do. I don’t know, you know, his weakness. I don’t know anything."

Goodness. It is one thing to lose a match but feeling so inferior that one feels like an early teen is another altogether. To be fair to Alcaraz, it also takes a player with a great awareness of himself and the game to admit he had no answers for what his opponent was trying to do. That is also an easy way to lose a tennis match.

Alcaraz could also lose his No. 2 ranking if Jannik Sinner wins the Miami Open. If Sinner fails to be victorious, the Spaniard will stay No. 2. Either way, this is going to be a fun year to watch the rankings because either Alcaraz or Sinner could finish atop the ATP and that will likely be battling each other the entire way.

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