New York (AFP) – Carlos Alcaraz said Wednesday he plans to play fewer tournaments in future, blaming an “impossible” tennis calendar for a rising number of injuries in the sport. Alcaraz, who has only just returned from a four-month layoff caused by a wrist injury, was speaking after he moved into the third round of the US Open with a four-set defeat of Portugal’s Jaime Faria.
The reigning US Open champion overcame a sluggish start before defeating his 72nd-ranked opponent 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 in 2hr 40 min at the Arthur Ashe Stadium. Afterwards, the seven-time Grand Slam champion said while he had not wanted to spend four months on the sidelines this season, he planned to make regular breaks a part of his schedule in future.
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“Obviously I don’t want to have this break because of an injury,” the Spaniard said. “But in the future I’m going to take some breaks, some long breaks. Maybe not four months, but one month, two months, missing some tournaments, because it’s impossible to play them all.”
“I think they are adding more important tournaments… you know, in a way they are making us play. You can say no. So it’s impossible, and we are seeing a lot of players getting injured, a lot of players getting tired. If they don’t do anything about it, we are going to see even more in the future.”
For me, taking this break because of an injury wasn’t that good, but what I’m going to say is I’m going to take some breaks and miss some tournaments in the future, for sure.”
Alcaraz showed some signs of rust against Faria, blaming his first set problems on a failure to convert a golden break point opportunity that would have given him a 4-2 lead. Instead, Faria leveled at 3-3 and then broke Alcaraz in the next game to go 4-3 up.
“Tough match for me. Obviously the first set I was feeling great, I had a break point, I missed it,” Alcaraz said. “After that, I was in a rush. I didn’t take time; I wasn’t patient, and that obviously cost me the break.”
Faria was left ruing his inability to build on an impressive opening set. The 23-year-old’s serve fell apart in the second while Alcaraz upped the tempo and began to find a telling extra zip in his groundstrokes.
Although Alcaraz had to save two break points in the opening game before holding, it was all one-way traffic thereafter. Faria was broken three times as Alcaraz went through the gears to take control of the contest. The Spaniard’s momentum extended into the third set, with Faria broken again to go 2-0 down.
Faria hit back with a break of Alcaraz’s serve to make it 2-1, but was soon back in trouble after being broken in the next game to trail 3-1. The set went with serve thereafter as Alcaraz took a 2-1 lead. Alcaraz went a double break up in the fourth to move into a 5-1 lead and served out to seal victory.
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