Alcaraz: “Sinner’s absence killed me, they thought I had to win everything”

Rome, 7 April 2025 – Tennis enters the clay court season, with the 1000 Masters di Montecarlo which will see the best tennis players in the world engaged in the search for points and the optimal condition to face the second tournament of the Grand Slam, il Roland Garros, which will start on Sunday 25 May. There will also be no Monaco tournament Jannik Sinner, disqualified since last February 9th following the Clostebol case. In these two months of absence of the Italian tennis player, many expected an improvement from alcaraz e Zverev, in order to reduce the distance from the first place in the ATP ranking, but this was not the case, with the Spaniard and the German who have struggled on several occasions and are still very far from Jannik Sinner. At the moment, the Italian is at 9930 points, with Zverev and Alcaraz chasing respectively at 7595 and 6730. The young Spanish tennis player himself expressed his opinion on Sinner's absence, analyzing the not very brilliant results of the past months. In Miami Masters 1000, in fact, Alcaraz went out sensationally in the first round against Goffin, after reaching the semi-final at Indian Wells. These were his words in the press conference: “The pressure for Sinner’s absence killed me. Some people thought that, with Jannik out, Zverev and I should have won everything. This is not correct, I am not surprised that I have not returned to being number 1 in the world. Some people asked me to take advantage of this period to return to the top of the ranking, and this pressure probably killed me. It is true, Jannik is now stopped, but I am too far from him and on clay I will not have a chance to get close again. I will try to give my best anyway”. In conclusion, the Spaniard added: “We play for eleven months without stopping, only sometimes we have a few weeks off, I too would like to rest every now and then and have a month off without doing anything. The intensity that is required of our body is always excessive. I think it is important, at the end of the season, to find more time to recover and be able to show our best tennis”. In any case, Sinner's return is getting closer: the Italian tennis player will be able to return to training on April 13, while the first official tournament where he will be seen again will be the Rome internationals, which will begin next May 6th.