Carlos Alcaraz makes brutal admission after blowing match point for Montreal Masters loss

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Carlos Alcaraz made a brutal assessment of his performance in his Canadian Open debut after squandering match point to suffer a three-set defeat at the hands of Tommy Paul. Despite playing the Masters 1000 event for the first time, the Spaniard came in as the No 2 seed but was unable to capitalise on a set-and-break lead and lost to the world No 34.

Alcaraz made his Canadian Open debut on Wednesday in Montreal, coming into the tournament as the second seed behind reigning champion Daniil Medvedev. The 19-year-old won a hard-fought 67-minute set in a tiebreak before racing to a 4-1 lead, putting himself within two games of the third round.

But he suddenly dropped five games in a row to allow his opponent, American Tommy Paul, to serve for the set. Although he managed to break back, the Spaniard blew a match point in the tiebreak to hand the set to the 25-year-old and ended up losing 6-7(4) 7-6(7) 6-3 to crash out on his debut.

In the hours after the match, the five-time title winner made a brutal admission about his defeat as he confessed he wasn’t up to handling the pressure on the day – something he hadn’t struggled with in the past. “It was the first time that I couldn’t handle the pressure…” he wrote on social media.

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“I have to be ready to have this pressure, to have this kind of moments, and to learn how to handle it!” The world No 4 will now head to the Cincinnati Masters, where he came through qualifying last year but lost in the opening round while still ranked down at world No 55.

And it will be the US Open after that, where he made a breakthrough as an 18-year-old by upsetting third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to a maiden Grand Slam quarter-final. This time around, Alcaraz has his sights set on achieving a career-best result at a Major and getting past the last-eight.

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“In New York, I want to do what I failed to do in other Grand Slam tournaments, which is to get past the quarter-finals,” he said of his US Open goal, having reached a second Grand Slam quarter-final at the French Open earlier this year. But Alcaraz has previously admitted that he also wasn’t able to handle the pressure at Major level after going into the French with his sights set on winning the title, and falling to Alexander Zverev in the quarters. 

“When facing the challenge that a Grand Slam supposes, a fundamental is the mental aspect because to face matches of four or five hours, you have to be very prepared,” he said after his recent run to the final in Umag, “I think I was not at my best in that specific aspect and I did not know how to handle the pressure and the nerves in the best possible way.”

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