Carlos Alcaraz suffering from low confidence, claims Daniil Medvedev

Daniil Medvedev believes Carlos Alcaraz is struggling for confidence as he prepares to face the Spaniard at the ATP Finals.

Alcaraz lost to Alexander Zverev in his first match at the ATP Finals and later criticising the court speed, which is a little out of character for the Spaniard.

It was also his third straight defeat after losses to Grigor Dimitrov in Shanghai and qualifier Roman Safiullin at the Paris Masters.

Medvedev, meanwhile, looks in fine form, and he believes Alcaraz is suffering for a little belief for the first time in his career.

“At this moment, for whatever reason, we feel that Carlos plays just a little bit slower,” Medvedev said.

“He doesn’t have the same confidence he had throughout the whole year. but this can happen to everyone. This even happened to Novak when he was younger. The question is, how fast is he going to recover?’

“When he lost the second set [to Zverev], they showed the speed of the strokes, groundstrokes. Sascha was like 10 kilometres higher than Carlos. This is very surprising.”

Alcaraz is making his debut at the ATP Finals after being forced to pull out due to injury in 2022. He has had another fine season, though, adding to his Grand Slam count by winning Wimbledon.

Is Carlos Alcaraz right about the ATP Finals court?

Carlos Alcaraz was definitely not amused by the court in Turin, stating it was considerably faster to others on the Tour.

“This surface is the fastest of the year, that’s for sure,” Alcaraz said. “I don’t know why they put this kind of surface at the end of the year because all the tournaments that we have played on hard court is so, so slow.

“Then we come here to the Masters and they put this court so fast.”

While Alcaraz appears to be blaming the surface itself, the speed of the court is much more likely to be due to the altitude.

Turin is 239 metres (784 feet) above sea level, and that has a significant impact on how balls move through the air.

The air is thinner the higher the elevation is, which means there is less air resistance acting upon the ball.

Another very prominent example in tennis is Madrid. The Madrid Masters is a clay tournament, but in terms of court speed it plays much more like hardcourts due to the elevation being approximately 650 metres above sea level.

Since this is Alcaraz’s first tournament in Turin, it’s very understandable that he has been caught out by the court speed.

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