Alcaraz gets Roland Garros Underway

eye dominance — racquet weights — forehand footwork

News wise there wasn’t anything that prompted this post other than to check-in and riff on a couple of things from the opening day of play at Roland Garros. I’ve been busy finishing my thesis (hopefully by the end of June), and coaching outside in the now warm and sunny (er) version of Montreal. I know I missed a Rome final recap, but injuries and matchups resulted in a final that — although featuring two deserving and great tennis players — had a tranquillising effect on me. Seeing as it coincided with a busy period of study, I took that as a sign. If all goes well, my next post will be a Roland Garros final recap.

Now what really prompted this post was catching moments of Carlos Alcaraz’s routine first round win over “LL J.J. Wolf”.

The first thing I noted was Alcaraz’s Nike kit.

Far from the psychedelic-cheesecake-inspired tanks of 2023, the Spaniard donned a dark grey tee with bright mustard shorts that, when paired with clay-dusted shoes, gave the vibe of a gym-rat tradesman arriving to a Barry’s session after a hard day’s work.

At least this outfit matches his racquet.

Of course, it is more accurate to say that Alcaraz was arriving to his place of work. And while the double major winner is still within the tender age-range of an apprentice, Court Philippe-Chatrier served as a suitable bottega for the Spaniard’s tutoring of the unfortunate and older Wolf.

A couple of continental grip forehands that were flicked around in an ad-libbed point. The Spaniard wields his Aero 98 like it is an extension of his arm.

Alcaraz plays with a degree of bodily dissociation that borders on the inhuman. He is reminiscent of Federer in this regard; the head hovers in falcon-esque composure while the body corkscrews, sending arms tracing long arcs as the legs scissor in rapid efficiency underneath him like some elaborate timepiece.

Some coaches would say Alcaraz, like Federer, is “left-eye dominant” and speculate that this holds some special place in timing the ball on his forehand side, but my hunch is that this is overblown; what matters is that the head is still, although I will admit that the Federer-slash-Alcaraz-hypnotic-gaze-well-past-contact does add to the appeal of a style as someone playing for art more than keeps. You can see the difference in the eye and head position of Federer and Djokovic on their forehands below.¹

Federer is still transfixed on the point of contact well after the ball has already left on its journey to his hapless opponent. In contrast, Djokovic is already preparing to react to what will come next, even before he makes contact with the ball. Source & Source.

A forehand-adjacent topic, the talking point for Alcaraz is that he has arrived in Paris with question marks over a tender right arm — an issue that has plagued him several times in recent years — and which has me wondering if this era’s young stars and their lighter racquets are partly to blame; by all accounts Carlitos uses an off-the-shelf Babolat Pure Aero 98 strung in the mid 50s.

“… there are five things you can do to reduce the force on the arm…They are: Use a heavier racquet; Use a head heavy racquet; Use a more flexible racquet; Lower the string tension; Use a softer, thicker grip.”

— Technical Tennis: Racquets, Strings, Balls, Courts, Spin, and Bounce, by Rod Cross and Crawford Lindsey

By my measure, Alcaraz does none of these, save for a regular base grip instead of leather.

Of course, comfort is not the goal of the 21-year-old phenom. Winning is, followed closely by entertaining the crowd.

There are many reasons one might want to watch Alcaraz play tennis. High up on that list (probably) is the desire to see him push his body to the extreme in one way or another. In this regard he is also reminiscent of Nadal. Both are (were) capable of jaw-dropping court coverage and an antithetical amount of subsequent shot power (and at end-range for Nadal, no less). Blending those two features is what enabled both to summit the modern game as teenagers.

Where Alcaraz differs from Nadal entirely is in his risk-taking and variation. In the Hegelian sense, Alcaraz is the synthesis of the Federer/Nadal thesis/antithesis.

Who else is hitting two disparate backhands back-to-back like this?

Also note the footwork up to the middle forehand. Alcaraz gets side-on very early, and then shuffles up to the ball:

Renowned Quebecois coach Louis Cayer noted a British/Spanish divide on such footwork several years ago, highlighting how the Alcaraz method prepares one better to attack the forehand when you get there.

While the talk leading up to Roland Garros has been that it is “more open” for someone like Tsitsipas, Zverev, Ruud, or Rublev to seize their chance, Grand Slam tennis is played at a pace that allows one to play oneself into form, given the five-set format, 128 draw, and two-week event.

While Djokovic, Sinner, and Alcaraz all come in nursing bumps and bruises, they have the chance to find form and fitness before running into the aforementioned second-tier hopefuls.

Sinner debuts tomorrow against Eubanks, first up on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, while Djokovic is slated to play Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert on Tuesday.

1. You can’t actually watch the ball onto your strings as our eyes don’t track smoothly, they use a ‘saccade’— “a rapid, conjugate, eye movement that shifts the center of gaze from one part of the visual field to another.” From EyeWiki