PARIS.- Carlos Alcaraz considered this Monday “an advantage to arrive fresh” at the end of the season, after staying four months away from the competition due to injury, during the press conference prior to the Paris Masters 1000.
“When you are stopped for a long time and return to the competition, at maximum demands, physical things come out, it is the most normal thing in the world,” said the world number 3 in the press room of the Plenitude Arenaon the outskirts of the French capital.
“But I am happy to finally reach this part of the season physically and mentally in a good state, I want to take coming fresh as an advantage,” added the 23-year-old Spaniard, about a final stretch of the season in which he has never played his best tennis.
Alcaraz landed in Paris after winning the tournament on Sunday Viennahis fourth title of a campaign in which he did not compete from mid-April to the end of August due to a right wrist injury.
He had started 2026 with his first trophy of the Australian Openin addition to the tournament Doha.
Since his injury he has won 15 of his 17 tournament matches (plus a victory in the Laver Cup), with some rooms in New York lost before Ben Shelton and a degree in Tokyo at the beginning of October.
“Having won in Vienna gives me the necessary confidence to be able to play at a very high level this week,” said Alcaraz about a tournament in which he never made it past the quarterfinals in his five appearances.
“But I feel like every indoor court is different… You can feel a certain way playing one week in Vienna and go the next week somewhere else and feel completely different,” he said of an indoor format in which he won his second trophy on Sunday, a far cry from his outdoor numbers.
A thorn in the side
“It is a tournament in which I really want to shine at some point,” said Alcaraz about a Paris Masters 1000 in which in 2025 he was eliminated by Cameron Norrie in his first game.
“I have never played my best tennis here, but I don’t see any specific reason not to… Some years I have arrived in Paris without feeling 100%, especially on a mental level. But other times I was impatient to play here and even so I have lost in the first or second round, without playing good tennis,” he acknowledged.
“Tomorrow I am going to train, try to regain good feelings, feel the ball as best as possible and give myself the best opportunity to play good tennis on Wednesday,” added the number 3, who will face the Czech Jiri Lehecka (15th) or the American Alex Michelsen (35th) in his debut in the tournament, in the second round.
Finally, the winner of seven tournaments of the grand slam He reflected on how he lived the four months he was away from the circuit.
“It has been a long process, I was out of the game for a while, I had time to reflect and there were moments in which I was sure that I would recover my best level. In others I told myself: ‘Maybe it will be difficult for me to really play at 100% again’ and I had doubts about whether I would recover my health,” he explained.
