Carlos Alcaraz begins Mutua Madrid Open title defense, defeats Alexander Shevchenko

Carlos Alcaraz swept aside lingering injury concerns as he kicked off his quest for a third straight Mutua Madrid Open title, defeating Alexander Shevchenko, 6-2, 6-1 on Friday.

The top seed had been forced to sit out the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters and a title defense at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell due to a right forearm injury; taking the court wearing a compression sleeve, Alcaraz played strong tennis throughout to defeat the unseeded Kazakh in 68 minutes on Manolo Santana Stadium.

After the match, he signed the camera lens with the message: "Estamos de vuelta," or, "we are back."

"I think I did pretty well," Alcaraz said on court after the match. "The last month, I just practiced slices, volleys, some backhands. It all worked pretty well today. I was thinking about hitting the forehand softer, let's say, and being more aggressive with the backhand, attacking the net as soon as possible. I think I had a good match in that part."

Born four hours away in Murcia, Alcaraz can consider Madrid a home tournament, and one where the 20-year-old quite literally came of age. He played Rafael Nadal on his 18th birthday only to avenge the defeat a year later, foreshadowing his rise to ATP world No. 1. He defended the title a year later to set the stage for a summer that culminated with a maiden Wimbledon crown over Novak Djokovic.

Alcaraz has dealt with ups and (relative) downs since winning his second major title, finishing 2023 at No. 2 in the rankings but going without a title until March when he cooled off an on-fire Jannik Sinner en route to a second-straight BNP Paribas Open trophy. Off the court since Miami due to his injury, questions emerged regarding the Spaniard’s fitness and whether he would be able to hit through his heavy topspin forehand.

"I'm still thinking about it," Acaraz admitted, despite clarifying he felt no pain on court. "It's not something that's left my mind. This Monday was the first practice that I did in a while; coming into this week, I'd been doing good things in practice, hitting harder. I'm not feeling comfortable hitting the forehand 100% but at this level, I'm happy to do it and think I can be competitive."

The youngster set to work on answering those questions against Shevchenko, who made his Masters 1000 main-draw debut at this tournament last spring when he reached the third round and pushed world No. 3 Daniil Medvedev to three sets. Ending 2023 with his first ATP final in Metz—and a marriage to WTA player Anastasia Potapova—Shevchenko has been tasked with backing up his breakthrough season, upsetting Holger Rune to reach the quarterfinals in Rotterdam but failing to qualify for Monte Carlo’s main draw.

The 23-year-old snapped a four-match losing streak in Madrid with a three-set victory over Arthur Rinderknech but was quickly overwhelmed by Alcaraz’s weight of shot, dropping serve in the opening game and losing the a 36-minute first set without striking a single winner—compared to 15 from his higher-ranked opposition.

The second set began in similar fashion as Alcaraz took another double-break lead with Shevchenko clawing one back. Undaunted, Alcaraz eased to another big lead and served his way to 5-1.

A former gaming buddy of players like Medvedev, Shevchenko left it all on the line in his attempt to serve to stay in the match but Alcaraz proved too consistent, getting to match point with some clutch hitting and outrallying the Kazakh to clinch the victory in just over an hour.

Awaiting Alcaraz in the third round is Thiago Seyboth Wild, who upset No. 28 seed Lorenzo Musetti, 6-4, 6-4 in the second round.