Alcaraz, the king of versatility in terms of surfaces

Diego Jiménez Rubio | 6 Oct 2024 | 08.50

Carlos Alcaraz, winning on all surfaces. Photo: gettyimages

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If something characterizes the best in history, it is their ability to perform at the highest level in any context, without showing a hint of weakness on any surface. Carlos Alcaraz is demonstrating an innate ability to perform at a high level on clay, grass, and hard courts, already accumulating two consecutive seasons winning titles on all three surfaces. Nadal never managed to do this for several years.

The differences in today's tennis between surfaces are smaller than decades ago, but all of them require an adaptation and specific skills to develop. The ease with which Carlos Alcaraz has adapted to all of them at just 21 years old is astonishing, as evidenced by his Grand Slam titles on clay, grass, and hard courts. He would only need to win a major tournament on indoor hard courts, where he has already shown great skills.

In any case, attention deserves to be given to a statistic as surprising as commendable, highlighting the difficulty of winning tournaments in the same season on all three surfaces, and doing so consecutively over several years. Great players in history never achieved it, like Rafael Nadal, whose successes at Wimbledon did not happen in consecutive years. Since 1990, the year a schedule similar to the current one was established, only nine players have achieved something like this.

- Only three players since 1990 have won titles consecutively for more than two years on hard courts, clay, and grass

Carlos Alcaraz has managed to end 2023 and 2024 with, at least, one title on all three surfaces: hard courts, clay, and grass. He thus equals the record of legendary players like Stefan Edberg, Michael Stich, Michael Chang, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray, who in their careers could not expand this achievement, although Djokovic still has time. Pete Sampras also won for two seasons doing this (1997 and 1998), but he had already set his personal record between 1992 and 1995, with four consecutive years of title wins on three different surfaces, including carpet being classified as a hard court.

While Evgeny Kafelnikov achieved this three times between 1995 and 1997, the supreme king was Roger Federer. It is chilling to see how the Serb managed to win tournaments on all three surfaces for seven consecutive years. It was his era of greatest dominance, between 2003 and 2009, and it seems like something difficult to repeat.

The limited grass court season is what makes it harder for someone to reach that record since beyond Wimbledon, the only possibilities are triumphing at Queen's or Halle, with the German event being a guarantee of success for Federer for a long time. It will be interesting to see if Carlos Alcaraz can continue to expand his personal account in the coming seasons, but already being on this list at his age underscores his greatness.

📊 The longest streaks of seasons with at least one title on three different surfaces (1990-2024):
▪️ 7 seasons: Federer 🇨🇭 (2003-09)
▪️ 4 seasons: Sampras 🇺🇸 (1992-95)
▪️ 3 seasons: Kafelnikov 🇷🇺 (1995-97)
🆕 2 seasons: Alcaraz 🇪🇸 (2023-24)
▪️ 2 seasons: Djokovic 🇷🇸… https://t.co/0gFuThnHNA
— Jeu, Set et Maths (@JeuSetMaths) October 5, 2024