Former player says Carlos Alcaraz needs to stop 'obsessing'

Carlos Alcaraz is driven. In fact, former ATP player Alex Corretja thinks Alcaraz is "obsessed." And that might not be the right mentality for the 20-year-old player to have.

Carlos Alcaraz has been extremely open about how he approaches the game and how much he thinks about current ATP No. 1 and 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic. Alcaraz admitted in October to thinking about Djokovic "every day" and that every time Alcaraz practices, the Serb is on his mind. That's probably a little too much for one tennis player to think of another.

According to Corretja in a recent interview with Eurosport, "I think Carlos has to relax about number one. You should not get obsessed with that: it can make you play tournaments that under normal conditions you would not play."

Carlos Alcaraz needs to learn to 'relax' in 2024

The point is that Carlos Alcaraz should simply play out his tournaments and take the matches one at a time. Thinking too far ahead about goals or what other players are doing is going to cost a player good form. Plus, all that mental energy being spent is going to take a toll over the course of a calendar year.

This might partly be Alcaraz's issues the last two years. He starts off extremely well, but by September, he begins to wilt. In 2022, he suffered an injury that kept him from participating in events. In 2023, he simply seemed to run out of gas. Alcaraz did not win a tournament after winning the Wimbledon final in five sets against Novak Djokovic in July. He did not seem prepared for what would happen after he won such an important title against arguably the greatest player ever.

Plus, this year, Alcaraz might be facing another threat besides Novak Djokovic. At the end of the year, 22-year-old Jannik Sinner might have been playing the best tennis of anyone, including Djokovic. Sinner defeated Djokovic twice in two weeks in November, and Sinner leads the all-time head-to-head against Carlos Alcaraz 4-3. Alcaraz might soon find a new player to be obsessed with.

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