Lesson for Carlos Alcaraz after shock US Open defeat: How to win on a bad day | Tennis News
About an hour into his second round contest at the US Open, Carlos Alcaraz finally came alive. Against a spirited challenge from Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp, a solid baseliner but a player ranked 71 spots below the Spaniard, he had been thoroughly outplayed in the first set, before finding the break to go 2-1 up in the second. The New York crowd roared; the inevitable comeback seemed on cards. It never came. Van de Zandschulp broke back immediately, and Alcaraz slumped to a kind of defeat he has never suffered since breaking through to the top level of this sport, losing 1-6, 5-7, 4-6 to end his Grand Slam season. This is his earliest exit from a Major since his French Open debut in 2021. While van de Zandschulp put in the greatest performance of his hardly notable career, he did not do so with swashbuckling groundstrokes and unplayable serves, but through baseline precision and resolute defence. It was Alcaraz, instead, who was poor from start to finish. His critical appraisal of the defeat …