“I’m tired mentally” – burnout woes continue to hamper Alcaraz at ATP Finals

The Spaniard lost 6-1, 7-5 to Casper Ruud in the opening match of the 2024 ATP Finals after an under-par performance

Carlos Alcaraz struggles in his opening match at the 2024 ATP Finals Chryslène Caillaud / Panoramic

Jamie Malachy

November 11, 2024

Nitto ATP Finals •group-stage • completed

See draw

C. AlcarazvsC. Ruud

Carlos Alcaraz has endured a somewhat torrid relationship with the season-ending ATP Finals across the early years of his young career so far.

Despite clinching the year-end No 1 ranking spot in 2022, injury forced him to miss the tour finale in Turin while last year he lost two of his four matches and was comprehensively outplayed by Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals.

In the aftermath of that defeat, the Spaniard admitted that he needed to address his lack of experience on indoor hard courts – something which has again come up this year following a 6-1, 7-5 defeat to Casper Ruud in the opening match of his 2024 campaign.

“I have no experience playing on indoor courts,” Alcaraz asserted in his post-match press conference, having just lost to the Norwegian for the first time in their five meetings.

“I could practise a lot on indoor courts, but I have no matches under my belt on indoor courts. So I don’t know. I have to be better in this part of the year that we play on indoor courts.

“I don’t know. I’ll be a really good player on indoor courts, I’m sure about it. But I think it’s about time, about getting experience, getting matches in my back, hitting on indoor courts.

“I don’t feel that I’m a bad player indoors. Probably I’m going to say a lot of players are better than me on indoor court.”

Having lost in the first and second rounds respectively of the Paris Masters for the past two years – the only other major late-season indoor tournament – losses that initially seemed to be one-off anomalies are beginning to form a pattern.

indoor hard-court struggles accompanied by late-season fatigue

But as well as both the events in Paris and Turin being indoor hard-court tournaments, they also share the common trait of coming at the tail end of a long and gruelling season – one that has faced recurring criticism this year for its length and unrelenting nature.

Twelve months ago, mental and physical fatigue arguably played a greater role in Alcaraz’s underwhelming ATP Finals campaign than his inexperience of playing indoor hard-court tennis.

It appears that, after a near-eleven month season across which the Spaniard has now played a total of 64 matches, mental burnout is again proving to be a problem for him at one of the biggest events of the year.

“I dare to say that every player is tired mentally. If someone says that he is fresh, he is lying,” Alcaraz said, smiling while he did so but clearly wanting to highlight this issue.

“Some players deal with it better than others. I’m tired. I’m tired mentally. Obviously a lot of matches, really tight schedule, really demanding year with not too many days off, not too many period where you could rest.

“It’s kind of you finish one week or you finish a swing, you only have two or three days off and then you have to go to other tournaments to other part of the world.

“Since the beginning of the year you’re accumulating hours, days. You come into this part of the year tired. As I said many, many times, I think this year I’m much better than last year, but I have to find the way to perform and deliver good tennis when being tired mentally.”

It was evident on court against Ruud that Alcaraz was struggling, with illness originally cited as the cause for his malaise.

The Spaniard has now himself confirmed that he wasn’t feeling his best.

“Today I didn’t feel well. In this morning, I feel uncomfortable in the stomach. After long rallies today, I couldn’t feel well,” he said.

“I don’t want to, you know, say because I don’t want to sound like an excuse. But if I feel bad, I feel bad. It is what happened today.”

But it is telling that Alcaraz chose to emphasise his struggles on indoor hard-courts and a lack of mental freshness above the illness he has also been grappling with.

Ultimately, it was a one-sided defeat, with the world No 3 conceding the last five games in a row from 5-2 up. It appears that there were a combination of issues affecting him.

Yet, the reality is that, apart from an impressive title run in Beijing, Alcaraz’s form has been far below his best for the entire latter half of the season.

Post-Olympics, he has struggled – much more so than usual. Early exits at Cincinnati and the US Open were followed by a surprising loss to Tomas Machac in the last eight in Shanghai before a second-round defeat to Ugo Humbert in Paris.

It’s true that the Games has made the 2024 calendar even more packed than other years, which no doubt will have taken its toll on. But it is also salient to point out that Alcaraz has added a further eight matches to his workload via exhibition tournaments since late December last year.

It goes without saying that the young Spaniard is more than capable of winning multiple ATP Finals titles in his career. Yet, currently, his chances of clinching his maiden title are being hampered once again by end-of-season burnout.

If fatigue is indeed the prominent factor here, then Alcaraz and his team will need to think very carefully about his scheduling for next season in order to maximise this extraordinary player’s potential across the whole year.

Perhaps playing fewer exhibition tournaments in between Tour events could be a sensible place to start.