Being gracious after defeat has apparently become “a new trend on the ATP and WTA Tour” with respected coach Patrick Mouratoglou saying, “players who pretend they don’t care are lying”.

Carlos Alcaraz, Alex Eala, Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula have all come under fire from Mouratoglou following their comments after their US Open exits with the quartet all expressing that they were happy with the level.

Defending champion Alcaraz lost in four sets in the quarter-final against Ben Shelton and the Spaniard insisted after the match that he was pleased with his performance.

“It was close. It was close. So I’m just not going to be disappointed about don’t getting the win at the end. You know, I’m just happy. I’m just proud about myself, about how I fought,” he said.

“You know, after the third set, physically I was really tired, but you know, I found a way to push myself up and, you know, physically giving extra.”

The world No 3 added: “You know, I leave the court happy. I leave the court with a smile, healthy, and this is what I needed.”

Eala lost in three sets in the third round against Iva Jovic and also saw her glass as half full while Swiatek insisted it was just a one-off match after she lost in the round of 16 against Zheng Qinwen.

Pegula was beaten in straight sets by Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-final and she insisted that there was not much she could do against the four-time Grand Slam winner, stating: “I did my best. I thought I didn’t play bad. I think I’ve actually played worse against her before, but I think that level was probably the highest I’ve seen from her, considering I don’t think I played bad at all.”

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But renowned coach Mouratoglou is not “buying” any of it as he wrote on LinkedIn: “Carlos Alcaraz spent four and a half hours on court, lost 10-7 in the fifth-set tie-break, and walked off saying he was happy. I’m not buying it.

“There is a new trend on the ATP and WTA Tour: being gracious in defeat. And Carlos was far from the only one in New York. Pegula, Swiatek and Eala all said more or less the same thing after their losses. ‘I’m happy with the match. I’m trying to see the positive side. The level was really high.’

“Let me explain where I stand, because I’m genuinely torn on this one.

“The first part is simple. Champions hate to lose. That is exactly why they are champions. They fight as hard as they possibly can to avoid the worst thing on the planet, which is losing.

“I worked with Serena for ten years. I can tell you how much she hated it. Pete Sampras couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks after a defeat. And the players who pretend they don’t care, I think they’re lying. You cannot build a culture of winning and be fine with losing at the same time.

“Then there is the graciousness itself. In the past, you lost, you shook hands, and that was it. Today it has become a trend. Novak is always incredibly gracious when he loses. Carlos as well. Sabalenka is one of the big exceptions.

“Here is why I’m torn.”

Alcaraz, of course, was playing in his first tournament since the Barcelona Open as he missed four months due to injury and Mouratoglou, who coached the great Serena Williams from 2012 to 2022, believes the seven-time Grand Slam winner perhaps believes he wouldn’t be able to win the US Open after his long absence from the Tour.

The Frenchman added: “Long term, the process matters more than the short-term result. When winning becomes more important than anything, you make the wrong decisions in the middle of a match, again and again. To reach your full potential you have to play the way you should play, all the time, and trust that after two or three years it takes you where you want to go. Wanting to win too much can become an obstacle to developing.

“Carlos doesn’t need to develop. He is already there. So if he really meant what he said, it tells me he came to this US Open without believing he could win it. He hadn’t had enough time to prepare. He wasn’t physically ready, and I believe that, because he lost nine games in a row against Ben Shelton and you could see on his face how much he was struggling.

“Maybe this tournament simply went beyond his own expectations. But a champion of that level, even when he is not at 100% physically, should still be thinking: I’m going to win this anyway.

“Serena won Roland-Garros with a 40-degree fever. Not one second did she think ‘this one is not for me’. And when she broke the ligaments of her ankle at the Australian Open, she told me afterwards that she should have won that tournament. I said: ‘Serena, you broke your ankle.’ She answered: ‘I should have won on one leg.’ She meant it.

“So I guess it’s a trend.”