This is how Carlos Alcaraz pushes his rivals to the limit | ATP Tour

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This is how Alcaraz pushes his rivals to the limit

This TDI analysis reflects the dominance of Spanish from the baseline

September 13, 2024

Carlos Alcaraz has distinguished himself as one of the most entertaining players to watch on the ATP Tour, thanks to his daring and ball striking. Despite being only 21 years old, the Spaniard is capable of resorting to a high-risk, high-reward game, but the key fact that confirms Alcaraz’s spectacular big shots are what have cemented his great 2024 season, which has placed him in a privileged position for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.

Alcaraz is second in the quality of his forehand (8.62) and backhand (8.24) strokes this season, according to Tennis Data Innovations (TDI), in collaboration with TennisViz. The quality of the strokes is calculated in real time, analyzing the speed, spin, depth, width and impact of each stroke on the opponent.

Shot Quality Update 🚨

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See the thread for serve, return and backhand…

Context: Tour Avg.
Serve 7.9
Return 6.5
Forehand 7.5
Backhand 7.1#TennisInsights | @atptour pic.twitter.com/NrGNOOSyNh

— Tennis Insights (@tennis_insights) September 12, 2024

“I think I always push my opponents to the limit. I try to be aggressive all the time, to take different shots,” Alcaraz said recently. “I think I will say that the worst thing for my opponent is that they don’t know what I’m going to do. They have to defend well, if they want to survive the point.”

Data and results on the court go hand in hand. Alcaraz has won two of the four Grand Slams this season, plus the ATP Masters 1000 in Indian Wells. The only player ahead of Sinner in forehand and backhand quality is current World No. 1 Jannik Sinner, who won the other two Grand Slams on hard courts. Read more about how Sinner achieves the best quality rates in forehand and backhand on the ATP Tour

Quality in the forehand (2024)

Quality in the backhand stroke (2024)

Alcaraz’s power rarely breaks down, no matter where he is positioned on the court. His forehand spin speed is 78 mph (125 km/h), which is 3 mph (almost 5 km/h) above the circuit average, and his forehand revolutions are 3.208 compared to the 2.708 average for everyone else. This reflects the weight of his shots. His backhand spin speed is 73 mph (117 km/h), which is 5 mph (8 km/h) faster than the circuit average, and his backhand spin revolutions are 2.005, which is also higher than the 1.775 average.

In the rest, the 15-time ATP Tour title winner is third in return quality (7.78), behind Daniil Medvedev (7.97) and Jannik Sinner (8.04).

Behind the Spaniard in these three categories is the same player who is behind him in the PIF ATP Rankings: Novak Djokovic, who has won 99 titles throughout his legendary professional career.

The Serbian defeated Alcaraz in the Olympic gold medal match at the Paris 2024 Games to secure the ‘Golden Slam’ (winning all four Grand Slams and Olympic gold). In a tough battle, Djokovic was able to put in his best performance of the season, just weeks after falling to Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final for the second year in a row.

Quality of the rest (2024)

You’d expect that by this stage of the season, the best servers would be in the Top 10 of the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, in a good position to qualify for the prestigious Nitto ATP Finals. But among the leaders in service quality according to TDI, only one of the Top 5 in this statistic is also a Top 10 player in the Race: Alexander Zverev.

In fact, this season’s Rome champion is the only player to appear on all four lists of hitting quality (forehand, backhand, return and serve).

Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, 2.03m tall, stands out above the rest for his quality of serve (9.38). At 21, he is enjoying his breakout year, after winning his first ATP Tour crown in Lyon and reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon. At the All England Club, he stunned No. 20 seed Sebastian Korda in the first round, on a day when Mpetshi Perricard hit 51 aces.

Milos Raonic is also among the leaders in terms of quality on serve, with 9.32 not far from Mpetshi Perricard’s numbers. Reilly Opelka and Hubert Hurkacz complete the top five.

Quality in service (2024)