Carlos Alcaraz has been told that he must find an ‘extra gear on his serve’ if he wants to fully return to his best level, a skill that was lacking in his loss to Ben Shelton.
The Spaniard lost out in a nail-biting 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(7) quarter-final clash against the American.
Alcaraz was participating in his first professional tournament for nearly five months after sustaining a wrist injury at the start of the clay-court season.
Despite the layoff, the world No 3 looked surprisingly sharp en route to the last eight, including a fourth-round match in which he dominated 20th seed Tommy Paul.
Shelton is just the second man to defeat Alcaraz in a fifth set, with Matteo Berrettini having also completed the feat at the 2022 Australian Open.
Whilst the tournament performance will undoubtedly be a positive one for the seven-time Grand Slam champion, former world No 1 Jim Courier believes that his lack of potency on serve ultimately let him down.
“I love the way he feels. He told us that he’s smiling, he’s happy that he feels healthy,” Courier began during a Tennis Channel segment.
“The next step for him is to shake a little bit of that big match rust. That was on display last night.
“No question that he didn’t perform in that match tiebreak the way he did at Roland Garros in the match tiebreak for the championship against Jannik Sinner.
“Of course, Shelton had a lot to do with that with his serve and his weaponry.
“But for him, he needs to find that extra gear on his serve. That’s the one thing that we did not see at the US Open.
“We did not see serves 137[MPH], 130. It was 127, 128 at the top end, so he’s missing a gear there.
“We’ll see if that’s just a psychological barrier he has to get by or if he actually has something still happening in his wrist that’s preventing that.”
More Tennis News
In addition to providing constructive criticism of Alcaraz, Courier was effusive in his praise for Shelton, who reached his second semi-final at the US Open.
He will next play fellow countryman and friend Frances Tiafoe for a spot in the showpiece match.
“You could sort of see this performance coming if you got to see him up close in Canada this year, where he ran the table for the second straight year, winning that Masters 1000,” Courier added.
“But playing at a level he’d never sustained for that many matches in a row.
“The return of serve – he’s been working all season long on being more aggressive with his return, and it hasn’t worked out for him for much of the year.
“His return numbers are actually poor. He’s breaking serve far less on average this season.
“But he was putting the work in – just like the last couple of years he’s been putting in one serve and volley a game, just to kind of hone that skill – and the volleys he needed to come up with today, they were there for him.
“This is a culmination – this match – of a lot of work that they’ve been done it. May not be the culmination of his US Open – he’s got work to do there – but all of that work, he saw it come to fruition in the biggest examination of his career at a major so far. It was awesome.”
Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for tennis coverage you can trust.
