Carlos Alcaraz has been told that he won’t be able to replicate Novak Djokovic’s dominance despite pulling ahead of his peers. The world No 1 is so far the only male player born after Djokovic himself to win multiple Grand Slam titles. While other young stars are yet to catch up, Laura Robson believes injuries and rivalries will stop Alcaraz from dominating men’s tennis.
Alcaraz has started to carry the torch left by the Big Four, with Roger Federer now retired, Rafael Nadal currently not playing due to injuries and Andy Murray unable to return to his Grand Slam-winning heights following a 2019 hip surgery. Only Djokovic has continued his dominance this season, leaving the Serb to form a rivalry with the 20-year-old.
With the 23-time Major champion currently serving as Alcaraz’s main roadblock at the biggest events, some believe that the Spaniard will be left to dominate alone when Djokovic eventually hangs up his racket. But former world No 27 Robson believes that won’t be the case.
“I find it hard to see anyone dominating in the same way, especially Alcaraz seems to be a little bit more injury-prone,” the retired British star said. “He plays the type of tennis that takes a lot out of your body, so it’s just whether he’s able to schedule everything correctly so that he can still peak for the Slams and the tournaments that he wants to do well in.”
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Robson still thought that Alcaraz would be right up there, proving that he could still win matches when he wasn’t playing his best tennis. She continued: “I just really love his attitude and even [at the Canadian Open] he wasn’t playing very well at all in both matches and yeah, it’s still seemed like he was well up for it.
“He wanted to do the best he can and I think that’s more than anything the signs that you’re looking for especially coming off such a big title and so often we see a bit of a dip in a Grand Slam winner in the first couple of tournaments back but as long as the attitude is going the right way, I feel like he’s definitely going to do well then, because he’ll just compete well enough to stay in the match even if he’s not playing his best tennis.”
But she still wasn’t convinced that Alcaraz would be doing well at tournaments without some pushback. With Djokovic currently troubling the 12-time title winner, Robson also thought that Jannik Sinner and Holger Rune would be able to stop men’s tennis from becoming the Alcaraz show in the future.
“But I don’t know, I think the way things have gone and you know, we’ve seen Alcaraz now pushing Djokovic and vice versa,” she added. “And now that Sinner has put himself back in the conversation, he’s won a Masters and you feel like actually he’d put himself right up there. Holger Rune would as well.”
“So I feel like they’re going to keep pushing each other and hopefully, we get to see some great rivalries over the years. Rather than just one person dominating the conversation the whole time.”
The US Open returns exclusively to Sky Sports and NOW with feeds to all courts from 28th August.