Carlos Alcaraz is doing everything with only one magic number in his mind, speculates ex-ATP pro

Carlos Alcaraz has publicly stated that he wants to be the best of all time, and to do that, he'll have to reach one magic number. That number is currently 24, though even with 20, he'd insert himself into the mix depending on his other achievements.

The cutoff is 20 because that's the lowest amount a Big Three player has won, and Alcaraz wants to be in that company. Former player Steve Johnson, who spent well over a decade on the tennis tour, believes everything Alcaraz is doing is related to that.

His schedule is one of those things that Alcaraz is organizing with the intent of both prolonging his career to maximize his chances of making that number but also optimizing his chances in real-time at events.

"I feel like Carlos Alcaraz is doing his schedule strictly to win Slams. He's missing Masters series. He's skipping Madrid or he's not playing Montreal. I think his only goal is to win Slams. I don't think he cares about winning the 250. I think he's only doing things to win Slams. He wants to get to that 20 number. That's what it feels like because he's missing some big events that Rafa never missed in his career," Steve Johnson on the Nothing Major Podcast. (18:33)

Alcaraz has been very savvy about his calendar, often citing the example of Novak Djokovic, who was the member of the big three that paid very close attention to the calendar, and the fruits of that labor are visible even today, when the other two are retired players.

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Carlos Alcaraz's grievances with the ATP Tour calendar

Steve Johnson made an astute observation about Carlos Alcaraz's focus on the calendar. He's publicly talked about the length of it and generally made comments that can be easily read as being against the long season as it is right now.

“Sometimes I didn’t feel motivated at all. It is a difficult moment. As I said many times, you know, the calendar is so tight, a lot of tournaments, no days off or not as many days off as I want.”

He's hardly the only one, and despite criticism, the Spaniard stood his ground when talking about it after his initial comments. When asked to comment on the same after appearing at a few exhibition events at the end of the season, Alcaraz said:

“I’ve seen a lot of people talk about my exhibitions this year and complain about the schedule, at the same time putting a lot of exhibition. But I want to say there is different things; we all have to separate the exhibitions and the calendar."

Carlos Alcaraz is currently preparing for the start of the 2025 season, and will have his sights set on winning the Australian Open.