Nobody would accuse Andre Agassi, Pat Rafter, and Taylor Fritz of not being good tennis thinkers.

Eight-time major winner Agassi has been referred to as having the most insightful tennis mind in the sport, while Fritz – who has a very analytical brain and can explain tennis tactics very well – has admitted he wants to go into coaching one day.

Rafter won two Grand Slams and is Agassi’s No 2 at the Laver Cup. Between the three of them, you would think they could unwrap many a mystery when it comes to facing someone from Team Europe.

Yet all of them were left completely flummoxed and at a loss as to what to say about Carlos Alcaraz when he faced Fritz in their Saturday night encounter at the 02 Arena in London.

During their clash, Rafter, Agassi, and Fritz put their heads together to try and solve one pressing issue for the 28-year-old. The former expressed his concerns about how the Team World star would handle Alcaraz’s low, short slice to Fritz‘s backhand.

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Tennis analyst Gill Gross relayed the conversation, in what he said was the “real turning point” of this year’s Laver Cup. Indeed, Alcaraz saved two match points against Fritz before winning 6-4, 4-6, 13-11.

Gross said on his YouTube channel, “It’s in the Alcaraz-Fritz match and Pat Rafter comes in. He’s seen something early and he says, ‘What should we do when Alcaraz chips his backhand short crosscourt?’

“Fritz says, ‘No clue’. Andre says, ‘You can’t defend the whole arena’, and Pat says, ‘I don’t know either’. And that was the end of the discussion.”

Gross said that Alcaraz’s slice, which was akin to Roger Federer‘s one during his playing career, put Fritz in a difficult position as it then meant the American either had to come in to the net or retreat to the baseline.

Either way, he would be defensively “vulnerable”, and the Team World cohort were left “stumped”.

This is just another example of how Alcaraz confounds the minds of many tennis stars, both past and present.

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