Alcaraz wants to start recapturing number 1 on his first Asian tour

There is no shortage of attractions on the Asian tour that begins this Friday at the ATP 500 in Beijing Carlos Alcaraz. To begin with, it is his debut in a continent where he has not yet been able to show off his racket due to the pandemic that canceled tournaments in that part of the planet in the last three years.. The truth is that eight members of the top 10 are mentioned in the Chinese capital. “It's like a Masters 1000 or a Grand Slam,” says Daniil Medvedev, second seed, the man against whom the Spaniard played his last match to date, in the semifinals of the United States Open..

“It was like different, like I was missing something. I can finally come. I have always wanted to do it, play in front of the Chinese public and feel what they have told me the players felt, that there is a lot of tennis,” says Alcaraz, who will also compete in the Shanghai Masters 1000, from October 5 to 15..

Absent Novak Djokovic, who will only play the Paris-Bercy Masters 1000, the ATP Finals and the Davis Cup Finals in the last stretch of the season, Alcaraz will try to regain the first place in the ranking that he lost in New York. “We have a nice battle for number 1, especially after Djokovic's great performance in America. “I come here with extra motivation to try to close the gap in the classification. “It's something that I keep in mind every time I train, in every tournament.”.

Other priorities

At 36 years old, this year's winner of the Australian Open, Roland Garros and the US Open has clear priorities, which are none other than continuing to win major titles and widening the gap with Rafael Nadal, whom he now leads by two, 24 percent. 22. In the Race, at this point of the year the most indicative classification, Nole only has 770 points ahead of Alcaraz. Given that the Murcian, in addition to the two tournaments in Asia, Paris-Bercy and the ATP Finals in Turin, will also play the ATP 500 in Basel, from October 21 to 28, his options of closing his second consecutive year at the top They are by no means disposable.

Within a demanding field of 32 players, if he surpasses Yannik Hanfmann, 53rd, from the previous phase, Alcaraz could face Karen Khachanov, who has just won his first title in five years in Zhuhai, and always on the field of the hypothesis, then face Casper Ruud, Jannik Sinner or Holger Rune, before a final against Medvedev.

Champion at Wimbledon, Indian Wells, Madrid, Barcelona, Queen's and Buenos Aires, and finalist in Rio and Cincinnati, Alcaraz appears in Beijing with a total of 58 wins and seven losses this season. A year ago, he suffered a certain implosion at this point in the course. After winning his first major in New York and becoming the youngest number 1 in history, he beat the Korean Soonwoo Kwon in the Davis Cup, but lost to Felix Auger-Aliassime, to whom he would also lose in the Basel semifinals, after fall against David Goffin early in Astana. The abdominal injury suffered against Rune in the Paris-Bercy quarterfinals would end the course. In 2023 he has dispensed with the Davis Cup to better recover from the American tour.