Carlos Alcaraz stated that he wouldn’t mind the court choice because he had sufficient match experience on a surface similar to this one in the ATP Finals. The 20-year-old sensation showed off his incredible resilience by coming back to win the event’s round-robin phase. His consolidation year of 2023 came to an end in Turin when he lost to Novak Djokovic in the semifinals.
Notably, this ATP Finals proved to be an extremely entertaining and somewhat unpredictable tournament despite a court speed that registered at 42 out of 50 on the official Court Pace Index for the game. Jim Courier, an analyst for Tennis Channel, compared the court’s speed to ‘greased lightning’ because it was the fastest on the ATP Tour this year.
Alcaraz expressed his thoughts after his match with Andrey Rublev and said: “This surface is the fastest of the year, that’s for sure. All the tournaments that we have played on hard courts are so slow, then we come here to the Masters and they put this court so fast. I don’t know why. I think the most difficult thing is how fast the court is. We played the whole season in very slow conditions. Coming here, it’s really fast. It’s a bit difficult to adjust to this court. But at the same time, I like it. To be aggressive, to go to the net. That’s the best thing about playing indoors.”
Nick Kyrgios gave his take on the faster courts and said: “I’d like to see more variety. It’s good to play on fast courts like these, where aggressive tennis gets rewarded a little bit more. I want to see some bang-bang, one-two tennis—and a lot of those Federer fans still out there want to see that too. I loved watching that Federer one-two.”
Carlos Alcaraz says every match at ATP Finals could be a final of a Grand Slam:
“I think the most difficult thing is how fast the court is. We play the whole season on very slow conditions. Coming here it’s really fast. It’s a bit difficult to adjust to this court. But at the… pic.twitter.com/CogWNvCdMl
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) November 15, 2023
Nick Kyrgios in 2023
Ranked world no.470, the Australian played his last match on the 13th of June when he lost to world no.116 Yibing Wu 7-5 6-3 in the 1st round in Stuttgart (draw).
Currently, during this season Nick has a 0-1 match record.
Carlos Alcaraz in 2023
WWWWWWWLWW Now the world no.2, the Spaniard played his last match on the 18th of November when he was defeated by world no.1 Novak Djokovic 6-3 6-2 in the semifinal in the Nitto ATP Finals (draw).
This season Alcaraz has an overall 65-12 record. Alcaraz clinched 6 titles in 2023 in Buenos Aires, Indian Wells, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Wimbledon. The Spaniard was the runner-up in Rio de Janeiro and Cincinnati.
Nick Kyrgios and Carlos Alcaraz have never fought against each other.
