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Carlos Alcaraz has been making waves with some incredible performances this year, winning his maiden ATP 500 and ATP 1000 Masters events in Rio and Miami respectively. The Spaniard came into the claycourt season with momentum and an abundance of confidence.
Alcaraz, however, started his claycourt swing with a tough loss to Sebastian Korda in his opening match of the 2022 Monte-Carlo Masters. Korda played well and stuck to his guns to win in three sets against Alcaraz.
During his post-match press conference, Carlos Alcaraz said he was disappointed with the result as he had arrived with high expectations after a tremendous start to the season.
"Well, I'm a bit disappointed with myself. I had a lot of chances to be up in the match and close to win, but, I mean, these losses sometimes is good to live. You have to play, as I said, to play matches. But I didn't think about the expectation that the people has to me. I mean, I just focused on me and what I have to do, but as I said, you have to play on clay court more matches (smiling)," Alcaraz said.
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"I had a week before Monte-Carlo to realize what I did in Miami" - Carlos Alcaraz on stellar 2022 start
In his post-match press conference, Carlos Alcaraz also spoke about the difficulty transitioning from hardcourt to claycourt and how the success he had in Miami sunk in while he was preparing for Monte-Carlo.
"Well, yeah, I had a week before Monte-Carlo to realize what I did in Miami, and trying hard to get used to play on clay court and trying to be as match-ready as I can to play here in Monte-Carlo," Carlos Alcaraz said.
"Yeah, just a couple of off days before training on clay and came here to Monte-Carlo. Well, I could train just three or four days in clay court I think is not too much day to be in a transition to go hard court to clay court, but, well, I think I played a good match on the first match on clay court, but yeah, as I said, I have to be more ready on clay."
Alcaraz will now look to shift his focus to Barcelona, where he'll be seeded fifth. The Spaniard lost in the first round to Frances Tiafoe in straight sets last year.
