Three years ago, Botic van de Zandschulp faced Carlos Alcaraz for the first time in the first round of the Australian Open. Both players were qualifiers, new on the scene, and their clash was on an outer court at Melbourne Park. Van de Zandschulp was No. 151 in the PIF ATP Rankings and Alcaraz, then 17, was not much higher at No. 141.
“What I was most impressed about was how he started. He was fully pumped, aggressive in a good way. That took me a little bit off actually, I had never played him,” van de Zandschulp told ATPTour.com. “Of course I’d seen him play and you hear all the talk about him. But that’s what I was most impressed about: the ferocity he was playing with, how he was hitting, the power he had. That was insane.”
Alcaraz won the match 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 and they will meet again at a major on Thursday in the second round of the US Open. This time, the Spaniard will walk on court a four-time Grand Slam champion.
“It’s always nice to compare yourself to players like Alcaraz, Djokovic, Sinner. I played Sinner for example twice this year. First time, it’s nice. Second time in the first round, you think, ‘Man, maybe a little better later in the tournament?’” van de Zandschulp said. “But it’s always interesting to play these guys because I think after the match, you always know where you have to get better — which kind of situations, what kind of shots. I think you can learn a lot from those matches.”
Watch Alcaraz-van de Zandschulp 2022 Basel Highlights:
It is a big opportunity for a player who has not faced a Top 10 player since April. It has not been an easy year and a half for the Dutchman, who has struggled regaining form and momentum after dealing with feet issues.
“Last year, I had way more serious injuries than this year. In April [of last year], I got a bone bruise on the left foot. Then I twisted my ankle. The bone bruise took a while, [it was] tough to get in my shoe with the bone bruise,” van de Zandschulp said. “Then afterwards, I [had] finally recovered, I twisted my ankle and tore my ligament. Same foot.”
The pain was difficult to deal with. Van de Zandschulp said: “I tried everything, like not tying all the shoelaces, maybe leaving something in between. It’s constant pressure. If you tie the shoe tight, it’s constant pressure on top of the foot. You feel it for a while.
“They probably thought I hit a nerve, like there was a nerve damaged as well, and a nerve takes ages to recover. It’s constant pain, constant something there. Of course some guys are better at playing in these kinds of pains I think. But for me, it was really the first time I really had something, so for me it was pretty difficult.”
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The Dutchman explained that he returned “a little too early” because he wanted to play at the US Open. He eventually recovered in October, but it was a series of events that set him back in the longer term.
“I got an infection on the right foot. So yeah, all with the foot last year,” van de Zandschulp said. “I have to say it took a while before you start feeling 100 per cent confident in the foot. That took me a while.”
Van de Zandschulp was healthy by the end of the year, but with the injury came a fall in the PIF ATP Rankings. The former World No. 22 fell as low as No. 115 this April and that led to more difficult early-round matches and a drop in confidence.
“Then you can lose a lot. If you play good guys, I think everybody is playing unbelievably well on the Tour,” van de Zandschulp said. “It’s not that common that you always win matches on the Tour. So then of course I think it’s a little bit tougher, if you week-in, week-out for four or five weeks, you don’t win a lot of matches, you just practise. Then of course it’s tough.”
Van de Zandschulp is back to World No. 74 after a string of success on the ATP Challenger Tour, reaching two finals since the start of July. Now the 28-year-old will face Alcaraz for the third time in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series and the first time since 2022 in Basel, where the Spaniard triumphed 6-4, 6-2.
“How he went from Australia to Basel in one and a half, maybe two years, he was such a complete player,” van de Zandschulp said. “In Basel when I played him, you never knew what to expect. He could play serve and volley, he could do everything with the ball. For me, that was a completely different match than in Australia.”
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