Within the best season of his career, Carlos Alcaraz suffered a heavy knockout against Cameron Norrie in the second round of the Paris Masters 1000. The Spanish ace hoped that the change of venue with the move from Bercy to the 'Dfense Arena' starting this year would help him play his best tennis in the French capital, where he has never gone beyond the quarterfinals.
However, the world number 1 literally sank on his debut and it will be harder for him to end 2025 at the top of the ATP rankings because of this result. The 22-year-old from Murcia will have to work hard in the coming days together with his team in view of the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin and the Davis Cup Finals in Bologna, knowing perfectly well that his game is less effective in indoor conditions.
The six-time Grand Slam champion clinched his first title under these conditions earlier this year, lifting the trophy at the Rotterdam ATP 500, but it's no secret that he doesn't like playing under the roof too much unlike his main rival Jannik Sinner.
Alcaraz played really badly
Carlitos has been almost unstoppable from the spring onwards, showing improvements from all points of view and finally finding that consistency that he had often lacked in the past. The old version of the Spanish star was revised on Tuesday and it will be necessary to do an in-depth analysis so that this does not happen again.
In an interview with 'Sky Sport Italy', former ATP ace and top analyst Paolo Bertolucci confided that he was surprised by Alcaraz's poor performance in Paris two days ago: "He was very nervous from the beginning and his team couldn't calm him down, I had never seen him make so many trivial mistakes. He complained throughout the match because of the conditions and had a really bad day. Norrie played a good match, but Carlos was disastrous in all respects and deserved to be eliminated from this tournament."
