Yes, that title in part references
@Kralingen. Please prepare for a longer-than-average post.
Today's Wimbledon 2025 Final has finally convinced me Carlos needs to looks elsewhere for coaching. Carlos, after taking a 1-0 lead, got beat fairly soundly over the next three sets to lose 6-4 4-6 4-6 4-6. I mainly want to focus on JCF's complete lack of tactical adjustments or even correction to Alcaraz's analysis of the match.
On Today's Match Tactics:
Ground Strokes/Neutral Ball Rallies Dynamic:
In
this video, Alcaraz can be seen yelling at his box (using a rough translation here, I don't speak spanish): "Much better than me. From the back of the court he’s much better than me, much much better than me. And it’s by far, by this much. He’s MUCH better than me, much better." This sentiment was the cause of the visible frustration Carlos displayed for the entire match, the belief that he was getting destroyed in baseline rallies by Sinner. Debate as you will who was better solely off the ground today, but here are some stats from the Wimbledon website match recap. (Also, for the sake of clarity, Player X's
forced errors are forced errors made by player X, not errors player X forced):
Rally Stats, Ground Strokes:
FH Winners: Alcaraz 4, Sinner 9
BH Winners: Alcaraz 3, Sinner 2
FH Forced Errors: Alcaraz 9, Sinner 7
BH Forced Errors: Alcaraz 5, Sinner 8
FH Unforced Errors: Alcaraz 14, Sinner 15
BH Unforced Errors: Alcaraz 9, Sinner 16
By all accounts, the stats point to a pretty neutral groundstroke battle. They might demonstrate that Sinner had a slightly better day on the FH and Alcaraz had a slightly better day on the BH (FWIW, if I had to I would give Jannik the slight nod in winning the battle from the baseline). But whatever marginal conclusions you may arrive at, the general consensus should be that neither one was
destroying the other off the ground. And yet, Carlos was so convinced that was the case he started playing hyper aggressive, especially when on serve.
Serve/Return Dynamic:
Continuing from above, Carlos's indignant attitude toward playing longer rallies was especially noticeable when he was on serve. Sinner's return game really picked up in sets 3/4. He hit a one clean return winner, but for the most part it was just good, deep neutralizing balls. Even on second serves, Alcaraz—perhaps out of pride, but I really think out of worry for having to play a rally from neutral—was adamant about stepping in and taking the ball on the rise, regardless of Jannik's return placement. He would often try to play aggressive shot, borderline an approach shot, no matter the return. It was infuriating to watch as a Carlos fan. There aren't (yet) good stats out there for return and +1 balls (or maybe I just don't have access to them) so I'm mostly going off of the eye test.
On return, the same sort of attitude plagued Carlos. He had done well in the first set and a half at neutralizing the Sinner first serve, but he had been woeful on the the second serve return. Alcaraz's return prowess comes more from his innate athleticism than technique, in my opinion, and so while he's quite good at neutralizing first serves (or at least getting a higher % in play and then neutralizing the point after), he is not nearly as good as Sinner at attacking second serves. Through the first two sets of the match,
Sinner was winning a greater percentage of points on his second serve than on his first. Just an unforgivable statistic, especially on this surface. Perhaps Carlos' return woes today are less on JCF than they are on Carlos, but regardless, there was no sort of strategy change, no sort of adjustment from JCF. Just a lot of positive energy and thumbs up.
Sinner really picked up his serve in the third and fourth set. Not only his first serve percentage, but his first serve placement improved and velocity seemed to rise. This was pretty obvious to anyone watching, as Jannik hit all 8 of his aces in the third and fourth sets. Of course, credit to Sinner here for raising the level, but there was almost no tactical adjustment from JCF and Alcaraz as Sinner's serve improved. As I said before, Alcaraz's return prowess is most prominent on the first serve return because of his ridiculous athleticism. Much has been said/written about the effect to which he used the chip return vs Novak in both the 2023 and 2024 Wimbledon finals, but there was none of that in the third or fourth set today.
In sets three and four, Sinner served a total of 10 games. He held at either love or at 15 in 6 out of 10 of those games.
Net Points/All-Court Dynamic:
Of course, people have probably read the stat that Jannik won 30/40 net points to Carlos' 12/23. I think this stat is a little bit misleading. Carlos's 5 drop shot UEs count as net points won for Jannik. Alcaraz's first serve % also really just never ticked up from the 53% with which he finished, whereas Jannik's went from 55% in the first set to 81% in the third, finishing with 67%, which helped him start more points in attack and thus get to the net. I think the net stat is more of a testament to how brutally Sinner won the serve/return dynamic as opposed to being a testament to him dominating Carlos off the baseline.
I will insert a caveat here that I don't want this to be an excuse for Carlos' loss nor am I attempting to take anything away from Sinner's win. I am very confident Sinner wins this match regardless of any adjustments Carlos could have or should have made; Jannik played at a very high level in the third and fourth. My frustration and the motive behind this post is really driven by fact that Carlos was yelling at his box saying "I'm getting beat from the baseline," when really, he was getting beat on the serve, getting beat on the return, and getting beat at the net—getting beat from everywhere except the baseline. And JCF did nothing to tell Alcaraz his assessment was incorrect.
On Carlos's Mental Game:
Zooming out from today's final, the general bigger issue with Carlos is his inconsistency within the season, within tournaments, and within matches. I'm not inside Carlos' head, and I don't pretend to know what causes his all-too-frequent lapses in concentration. But I do know that it's been an issue for far too long and JCF really hasn't done anything to change it. Truly very few things are unchangeable with devotion and practice. Novak has spoke at length about how his mental strength is not a "gift," but rather something he has developed over years through conscious, devoted practice. These are not things JCF has had success at teaching Carlos.
Maybe that's the magic of it all. Perhaps the ebbs and flows are all just part of his makeup and it will be with him for his entire career—that you can't have the ridiculous highs without the ominous lows. I'm aware of the Netflix documentary, his partying til 6am, his need for the approach to be somewhat laissez faire. I'll be a fan regardless. But he's 22, his prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. He needs a coach who is able/willing to steer him in the right direction. With prospects of a top-5 career in the sport's history and your main rival has just taken the lead in momentum between you two, there's very little excuse not to try to work on these things. I'm not saying he has to go sober and become a monk, but he's got to do
something to help with his focus issues.
Rebuttal to "Carlos has won 5 slams with JCF. Why would he fire him?"
There have really only been two slams that Carlos has won during which he needed a tactical adjustment, Wimbledon 2023 and the French Open 2025. I won't dwell too much on the Wimbledon 23 F, to be honest I can't really remember to what extent tactical adjustments were made/changed throughout the match, I remember it a lot more as a momentum-driven affair. On the latter, what really needs to be said. Alcaraz was a point away from losing because he/JCF hadn't made a single tactical adjustment until God seemingly stepped in before it was too late. Carlos didn't actually change his game at all in late third, fourth, or fifth set. He just played better.
Closing:
For what it's worth, I think all of these things should be on the players' shoulders regardless, at least during matches. Tennis should be an individual sport where you have to diagnose and make changes on your own. But given that coaching is allowed, I really do think JCF is holding Carlos back.
Carlos is a magical athlete; he has a steel nerve unlike anyone in the sport's history, save for Novak. He is very, very good at
adapting and raising his level, but I view
adapting as expressly different from making a tactical adjustment, something I really think he's still incapable of doing. I think this is, to an extent, a large part of what drives his inconsistency of results during parts (hard court swings) of the season. The round 2 loss at the USO was maybe the best example of this; he just kept hitting his head against the wall trying to hit the ball through Botic Van de Zandschlup and never actually changed his tactical approach. At some point, his raw talent and top-3 ever athleticism won't be enough to stave off the rest of the tour, but really won't be able to stave off Sinner, as was demonstrated today. I think a new coach is in order, because these are problems that will only fester if they go uncured.
P.S. This is my first attempt at a longer analysis of a match diving into some stats/what I saw while watching. I quite like to write and I quite like to watch tennis, so I figured this would be a good outlet for it. Any feedback would be appreciated.
