Carlos Alcaraz lost his first match of the season this Sunday in the Indian Wells semifinals. His conqueror, Daniil Medvedev, has been the first player to figure out how to disconnect the player from Murcia, although this doesn’t erase the tremendous start of the season that Carlitos has had, with a 16-0 streak that will go straight into the record books. Ahead of the Murcian, there are still better streaks from four other players: Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer, and Pete Sampras. He has time ahead to fight to improve this start of 2026.
Alcaraz admitted that the heat particularly bothered him in the first set, but explained that Medvedev’s game style only heightens this.
“Well, it was because of the heat,” Alcaraz answered in his post-match press conference. “I mean, the first set, I wasn’t bad at all, but I just felt like the long rallies, especially when you play against Daniil, that the rallies are long, that you have to increase all the power in almost every shot.
feels like you’re wasting extra energy after every shot. And with the heat, sometimes it’s really tricky to deal with all of that. So the first set was a little bit of struggling for me, but it was because he just made it. He just made it that I had to struggle a little bit.
“In the second set, I just started to feel much better. I realized what I have to do. I realized that I have to suffer, and I accept it. I would say that that’s why the second set was better.”