With a Wimbledon victory, Carlos Alcaraz would join another exclusive club

With Wimbledon starting on Monday, Alcaraz has the chance to write his name in the history books again.

This time, Alcaraz will be looking to join an even more exclusive club than the now seven-strong squad that has won men’s Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces. Favorite to win his second consecutive title at the All-England Club, the 21-year-old will also be looking to win the cleverly named “Channel Slam” and make it back-to-back wins at the French Open and Wimbledon.

“Well, winning Grand Slams is difficult. Of course, switching from clay to grass is a completely different surface, a completely different game,” said Alcaraz before his first-round match against Estonian Mark Lajal on Monday. “Let’s just say I’ll try.”

Alcaraz exuded youthful optimism as he spoke about the challenge at a press conference on Saturday, punctuating his sentences with a wide grin as he sat before reporters with freshly cut hair and the trendy summer uniform of a thick white T-shirt and cut-off denim shorts.

But his positive attitude should not obscure how terrible the turnaround between the French Open and Wimbledon can be.

There’s a reason only five men have achieved this feat since the Open Era began in 1968 – Rod Laver (1969, the year he won the Grand Slam), Björn Borg (1978, 1979 and 1980), Rafael Nadal (2008 and 2010), Roger Federer (2009) and Novak Djokovic (2021). The tournaments are played on the two least similar surfaces – slow clay and fast grass – and require players to adapt their movements, ball striking, footwork and game strategy in just three weeks.

“I know it will be a really difficult and big challenge for me (to win the two Grand Slams in a row),” Alcaraz said, “but I think I’m ready for it.”

He is among a small group of favorites for the men’s title, along with world number one Jannik Sinner, the lanky Italian who won the Australian Open in January and lost to rising rival Alcaraz in the French Open semifinals. Zverev made the semifinals of a grass-court tournament in Halle, Germany, before Wimbledon and could also go far. And world number two Novak Djokovic is confident he can compete on June 5 despite undergoing surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.

Djokovic, who is playing for his eighth Wimbledon title, which would equal Roger Federer’s men’s record, is not the only former champion hoping for a quick comeback after surgery. Two-time winner Andy Murray has not yet decided whether he will play his first-round singles match against Tomas Mahac on Tuesday after undergoing surgery on June 22 to remove a cyst from his spinal cord that was pinching a nerve and affecting feeling in his right leg.

“I’ve been training for the last couple of days. I played a set today,” Murray said on Sunday. “It went pretty well, but I still don’t have 100 percent feeling and sensation in my leg. It’s getting better every day. As I said a couple of days ago, I want to take every opportunity to get there.”

The 37-year-old Scot has declared that this Wimbledon will be his last; he plans to end his career after the Olympic Games in Paris.

In the women’s competition, reigning French Open champion Iga Swiatek and Australian Open champion Ayrna Sabalenka are both trying to win Wimbledon for the first time.

Swiatek, the world’s top-ranked player, is coming off a double high: winning her fourth Roland Garros title earlier this month and watching Taylor Swift perform in Liverpool, England.

“I actually thought about coming here (to see Swift) for the second time. My team was like, ‘Okay…'” Swiatek said, trailing off. “Basically after that concert, about three days after, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep and stuff. We decided it was better to focus on the tournament.”

Swiatek had regained her usual composure when she arrived at Wimbledon. She has not played a tournament since the French Open and has instead devoted herself to training on grass, focusing particularly on her movements that suit clay so well, as well as her serve.

In the first round, she faced an impressive challenger: American Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin, who won the Australian Open in 2020 and defeated Coco Gauff in a surprise opening match win last year.

That memory is comforting Gauff this time as she hopes for a better result at Wimbledon. The Floridian is another favorite for her second Grand Slam title, five years after she rose to tennis stardom here as a 15-year-old.

“Yes, I’m very relaxed about Wimbledon going into this year,” said Gauff. “Last year Wimbledon wasn’t that great for me. It’s like it can’t get any worse, it can only get better or just as good.”

Gauff learned from last year’s loss that difficult times don’t last forever. After her loss to Kenin, she went on a run in late summer, winning three hard court tournaments, including the US Open, and began the climb that has seen her become the current world number 2.

“Oh man,” Gauff said on Saturday, “I wish I could have seen myself today, a year ago after the game.”