PARIS.- The Spanish Carlos Alcarazworld number 3 and who arrived after an injury to his right forearm, qualified this Sunday for the second round in the tournament of Roland Garroswith a comfortable 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 victory over the American Jeffrey John ‘JJ’ Wolf (107th).
In the next stage of the competition, the 21-year-old young man from Murcia will have to face the British Jack Draper (39th) or the Dutch Jesper De Jong (176th).
The match against JJ Wolf, who had entered the draw as a ‘lucky loser’ after not having passed the previous rounds, had hardly any history, with a one-way game and a very confident Alcaraz, who gave his opponent no option, who in 2023 had reached the round of 16 in the first Grand Slam of the season, the Australian Open.
But beyond the forcefulness of the result, the great news for Alcaraz was that he did not seem bothered by the problem in his right forearm that conditioned his European season on clay, to the point that it forced him to be absent from three of the events. that I had planned (Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Rome). He only played in Madrid, where he was defending the title and was defeated in the quarterfinals by the Russian Andrey Rublev.
“Playing four games (those in the Madrid tournament) is too little, I’m not going to lie. I would have liked to play more. But I have done a good preparation in the last two weeks before coming to Paris. I am moving well, I hit well the ball and my forehand is getting better and better,” he said.
In this Sunday’s game, Alcaraz played with a special bandage on that forearm, as he has been doing in his games and training sessions since the problem was revealed in April in a practice in Monte Carlo.
Difficult test for Alcaraz to overcome:
“I’m very happy to be back in Paris. It’s been a really difficult month for me. I love tennis, playing, matches… And when I’m left without that, it hurts,” Alcaraz commented at the end of the match in your message from the track.
“I have done everything I could to be back to 100%. I am happy to show good tennis again,” he celebrated.
At Roland Garros, Alcaraz reached the semifinals last year, losing there to future champion Novak Djokovic. A few weeks later, the young Spanish talent was able to take revenge by beating the Serbian in the Wimbledon final.
Source: AFP
