Can Carlos Alcaraz win Wimbledon this year?

The short answer is an emphatic yes after a spectacular dress rehearsal at the Cinch Championships last week in London, where he won his maiden grass-court title.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of Alcaraz’s five matches identified the Spaniard was dialed in by dominating opponents in the “first strike” rally length of 0-4 shots. Overall, Alcaraz played around 70 per cent of his points in “0-4”, meaning that every seven out of 10 points he only hit the ball in the court a maximum of two times. Grass-court tennis is still very much about the serve, return, and the the ensuing two shots.

Alcaraz Rally Length Played

• 0-4 Shots = 71% (494)
• 5-8 Shots = 22% (154)
• 9+ Shots = 7% (46)

Overall, Alcaraz won 54 per cent (375) of his points in five matches to win the tournament, showing just how close the margins are to secure victory. Another way to interpret this data is to recognise losing 46 per cent (319 points) of total points represents a good week at the office.

The rally length data clearly identifies that Alcaraz feels right at home on the grass, dominating the shorter rallies of 0-4 shots more than the other two rally lengths.

Alcaraz Rally Length Won

• 0-4 Shots = +30 (262 won/232 lost)
• 5-8 Shots = +18 (86 won/68 lost)
• 9+ Shots = +8 (27 won/19 lost)

Alcaraz forged his most significant winning margin in the 0-4 shot rally length, winning thirty more points than he lost for the tournament. He was only +18 in the 5-8 shot rally length and just +8 in the 9+ rally length. These Queens Club grass-court match metrics are the ideal preparation to take the title at SW19.

What’s fascinating is that Alcaraz played more one-shot rallies (just one ball in play) than any other rally length for the five matches. Following is the breakdown of rally length in the first four shots. 

Rallies Played: Balls In The Court

• One Shot = 32% (160)
• Three Shots = 29% (145)
• Two Shots = 24% (121)
• Four Shots = 14% (69)

A three-shot rally jumps a two-shot rally because of the halo effect of the serve. Alcaraz’s power-forehand and rock-solid backhand naturally devour any weak returns from his opponents.

Alcaraz has already proven that his game is well-suited to excel on hard and clay courts, and his effort at Queen’s Club ticked the box for grass courts as well. Alcaraz plays with exceptional balance, and his compact forehand and backhand backswings are hard to extract errors from.

Alcaraz is back to world No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings after winning the Cinch Championships. He held a silver trophy as a reward. Don’t be surprised to see a golden trophy in his hands in two weeks’ time.

Play has resumed after a rain delay on the opening day at Wimbledon, where a host of seeded stars adorn the opening-day schedule at the grass-court major.

Defending champion Novak Djokovic, chasing his fifth consecutive title at the All-England club, took the first set against Pedro Cachin 6-3 on Centre Court moments before the inclement weather arrived. Djokovic played his part in making the court playable again during the one-hour, 29-minute interruption, wiping down the court with a towel while ground staff used leaf blowers to dry the baseline.

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The Centre Court roof was reopened before Djokovic and Cachin resumed their first-round clash. Action on Court 1, where Casper Ruud is taking on Laurent Lokoli, has resumed under the roof.

After Andrey Rublev and Lorenzo Musetti notched early opening wins, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Hubert Hurkacz and John Isner were among those whose first-round matches were interrupted by the London rain on the outside courts. Hurkacz led Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-1, 6-4 upon the resumption of their match, while Auger-Aliassime and Isner were both on serve in the opening set of their matches against Michael Mmoh and Jaume Munar, respectively.

Also forced off were Brandon Nakashima and Jordan Thompson, who were locked on serve in the fifth set of a thriller on Court 9. Thompson rallied to lead his American opponent 2-6, 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(4), 3-2, and held break point at 30/40 on Nakashima’s serve when play was suspended.

ATPTour.com looks at five ATP Challenger Tour players to keep your eyes on during Wimbledon.

Max Purcell
The Australian has lit up the Challenger circuit this season, boasting a 34-7 match record at that level. Purcell has competed in six Challenger finals in 2023 and enjoyed a 15-match winning streak in February, when he triumphed at Challengers in Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune.

The World No. 64 is now in position to compete in more ATP Tour events and will next aim to continue his breakthrough year at the season’s third major. Part of what makes Purcell a tricky opponent on grass is his unique style of play, which he will put on display against seventh seed Andrey Rublev in the opening round.

“I don’t see anyone hitting slice forehands like I do, so I think that’s pretty unique,” Purcell told ATPTour.com earlier this year. “I don’t think you see many singles guys volleying as well as I do, from all the doubles [I’ve played]. Big emphasis on coming to the net when I can and when I do come to the net, making sure I pull off some good volleys.”

Last year, the 25-year-old Purcell partnered countryman Matthew Ebden at Wimbledon and went on a dream title run to win the men’s doubles crown. Five of their six matches went the distance, including the championship match against Croatians Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic.

Dominic Stricker
The World No. 117 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, who was crowned champion at this year’s Rovereto and Prague Challengers, is the only Swiss player to win five Challenger titles before his 21st birthday.

The lefty will look to build on his momentum at Wimbledon, where he meets Australian Alexei Popyrin in the first round. Should Stricker advance in his SW19 debut, it would be his first Grand Slam main-draw victory.

The former junior World No. 3 was a semi-finalist at last year’s Next Gen ATP Finals and is eligible for the 21-and-under event again this year. Stricker is currently eighth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Next Gen Race.

Matteo Arnaldi
The 22-year-old advanced through qualifying as the top seed and will face Spaniard Roberto Carballes Baena in the first round. Arnaldi has collected a trio of Challenger titles this season, including last month in Heilbronn, where the Italian rose to a career-high No. 72 following his triumph.

Arnaldi relied on his lethal forehand to earn his first Top-10 win at the Mutua Madrid Open, where he downed third seed Casper Ruud in what he described as the “best match of my life”. The Sanremo-native is making his Wimbledon debut.

Sebastian Ofner
The Austrian has tallied a 30-12 Challenger record this season and has competed in five Challenger finals. Following a finalist finish two weeks ago at the grass-court Ilkley Challenger, Ofner was awarded a wild card into Wimbledon. The 27-year-old will next aim to back up his surprise run at Roland Garros, where he reached the fourth round as a qualifier and sealed his Top 100 debut.

In 2017, Ofner made his first Grand Slam tournament appearance at the All England Club and upset 17th seed Jack Sock en route to the third round. Ofner will bid for another run when he starts on Tuesday against World No. 36 Jiri Lehecka.

Shintaro Mochizuki
A former junior No. 1, Mochizuki became the first Japanese male player in history to win a major boys’ singles title at Wimbledon in 2019.

The #NextGenATP star has since graduated to the ATP Challenger Tour, where he won his maiden title in April at the Barletta Challenger. The then-19-year-old became the third Japanese teenager to win a Challenger title, joining Kei Nishikori (Bermuda 2008) and Yoshihito Nishioka (Shanghai 2014).

The Kawasaki-native will look for the biggest win of his career in the first round when he meets 16th seed Tommy Paul.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past that anything short of a run to the second week of Wimbledon would have felt like a failure to Milos Raonic.

A semi-finalist in 2014, the Canadian reached the final in 2016, the quarter-finals in ’17 and ‘18 and the fourth round in his most recent appearance in 2019.

But after nearly two years away from the sport following a succession of injuries – most notably to his Achilles – Raonic isn’t sure what would constitute a passing grade at this year’s event. Traditional benchmarks don’t seem to apply.

“I think it’s going to be an emotional thing that I go through. I don’t think it’s possible to have an idea,” Raonic said. “I could win my first match, I could lose my first match and I could walk away in both cases happy or upset. So I’m not exactly too sure [what success would be].

“What I used to measure things last time I was here was quite different than how I would measure things now.”

Last month the 32-year-old won his return match in ‘s-Hertogenbosch against Miomir Kecmanovic, admitting after the match that there were times during the past two years that he thought he would not make it back. He said at the time: “There were moments when I said, ‘I’m done’. At the end of 2021, I had no intention to play again, [I thought] ‘I’m going to figure out my life’, shortly after I got married.”

Despite his return to Wimbledon, this is a far from a full-throated ‘I’m back baby!’ story. After leaving ‘s-Hertogenbosch with shoulder soreness following a second-round defeat to Australian Jordan Thompson, Raonic’s goals remain short-term.

“Right now. I’m coming back to play here,” he said Sunday at Wimbledon. “One more time coming back especially to play Toronto, and I’ve come back for the US Open as well. And then I have to have a conversation with myself.”

Raonic says that he enters Wimbledon happy with his right shoulder, which throughout his career has fired 8,160 aces (ninth best all-time according to Infosys ATP Stats), but he will be mindful of his recent experience at the ATP 250 in The Netherlands.

“I played the first match, everything was kind of feeling okay. It wasn’t so much the prep, but a lot of it was tension and nerves,” he said. “I’ve played a lot of times where I’ve been out for three, four months, even, I think six months, one time. But this time it was two years. And for the first year and two months, I didn’t hit a single ball. So I think those kinds of things take a bit of a toll.

“No matter how much you prepare and practise, some things you can’t really replicate, like the tension of a match and how badly you want to win.”

Raonic, who boasts a 27-9 record at Wimbledon, plays his opening match Tuesday against World No. 159 Dennis Novak.