Where is Carlos Alcaraz taking tennis?

Who rocks the sleeveless fit best: Carlos Alcaraz, Frances Tiafoe or Ben Shelton?

NEW YORK—The second-round US Open match between defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and rangy South African Lloyd Harris began in Arthur Ashe Stadium early last week with Alcaraz receiving serve. The ensuing game unfurled like a handy study guide to Tennis: The Alcaraz Way.

The game featured, among other things, a drop shot/lob combination by Alcaraz that left Harris flat-footed and frozen at the net. There was an untouchable forehand winner hit cross-court by Alcaraz from well outside the sideline. Also, a sharply-angled drop volley—a follow up to a well-disguised drop shot—that left Harris with no play.

About the only thing we never saw in that first game was the thousand-watt Alcaraz smile but, as usual, there was plenty of that to come. Alcaraz’s glee is a permanent feature of his game, so infectious that even his opponents often follow his lead and take part in the festivities—smiling, playing to the crowd, actually enjoying themselves—something that isn’t generally associated with the often grim business of high-stakes Grand Slam singles.

Win, or lose, a dazzling point with both players at the net? Alcaraz is likely to be there, grinning, ready to meet his opponent for a low-five and a smile.

The more you watch Alcaraz, the more likely you are to accept that the key to his game and his success—the secret sauce—is his joy.

Alcaraz, still just 20, is more than a sporting genius and tennis’ very own smiley-face emoji. His effect on tennis at a variety of levels is transformative. It started with the way he plays and proceeded, undiluted, through the way he carries himself on the court, and the attitude he brings to the game.

Of course, none of this would be possible if Alcaraz were not posting mind-bending results at the same time. He was a Grand Slam champion while still a teenager, a year-end ATP No. 1, and most recently a Wimbledon champion. Yet the more you watch Alcaraz, the more likely you are to accept that the key to his game and his success—the secret sauce—is his joy.

That is, the joy he takes from the very act of playing the game in contrast to winning, earning millions, or seeing his boyish face on the television screen. It’s the same joy a kid feels running after and hitting the ball—even just watching others hit it. Many of Alcaraz’s peers on both tours profess not to watch much tennis. It’s as if they have only a narrow interest in the game and the experiences of their rivals. Not the Magician of Murcia.

“I love watching tennis,” he said at the US Open. “I love Grand Slams because there are a lot of matches. I study a little bit [my] opponents, I am a huge fan of tennis, I’m almost the full day watching scores. Any time I can, I sit on (sic) the TV and watch.”

For now, there are no simmering discontents in the world of Carlos Alcaraz. No bitter memories, no caveats to the fame and riches he’s already earned, nor to the demands of his career, or the discipline it requires. His life is an enormous blank canvas that he has just started to paint, and his joy allows him to work with a free hand, with the same liberation and fearlessness as a great artist following where his instincts lead.

Some of the evidence for that is found in easily overlooked places. Take Alcaraz’s attitude toward the drop shot, a ploy that not very long ago was still considered a low-percentage shot to employ infrequently, and only under the most favorable conditions. It is probably Alcaraz’s favorite shot, and it is having an evolutionary impact on the game, as old and young absorb the devastating and variegated way he employs it.

After Alcaraz’s highly entertaining third-round win over Dan Evans, a reporter asked the Spaniard what he “feels” when he hits those feathery but lethal tennis bon-bons. Smiling at the question, Alcaraz replied: “When I hit the dropshots, and the opponent couldn't reach it, it’s a great feeling. I mean, I feel like I’m gonna do another one.”

Now that’s joy.

Never mind that the drop shot, like many of the other spectacular shots Alcaraz tries, sometimes backfires. (As Evans said of their match after his four-set loss, “He (Alcaraz) let me out of jail a few times.”) It appears that for Alcaraz, the joy of the spectacular, successful strike that brings the crowd to its feet far outweighs the pain or disappointment of an error.

The drop shot is risky, alright, and while it seems far less threatening than a warp-speed forehand, Alcaraz uses it to the same end: to force the action, to disrupt, to get to the net or lure an opponent there. In Alcaraz’s hands, the drop shot is aggressive. As ESPN commentator Mary Jo Fernandez put it during the aforementioned Harris match, “Nobody is more aggressive when they’re in trouble than Alcaraz.”

We have long waited for a successor to the graying icons of men’s tennis, but few imagined that the new paragon would seem so intrinsically different from the likes of Rafael Nadal, or Novak Djokovic—or have as much of a shaping influence on how the game is likely to be played going forward. Even Djokovic, the 36-year old Grand Slam titan, had high (and somewhat startling) praise for Alcaraz’s risky, instinctual style.

“I do wish sometimes I can play, maybe in some moments, slightly more aggressive,” the 36-year old titan, whose baseline grinding earned him 23 Grand Slam titles, said in the wake of his narrow win over Alcaraz in the epic final of the recent Cincinnati Masters. “Maybe I should have.”

Along similar lines, Tennis Channel commentator Jimmy Arias told me, “He (Alcaraz) is the prototypical model for how you want to play. He can back up if necessary and defend, but as soon as he hits with any depth he will move forward, looking to get a jump on a short ball. I’ve never seen anyone move up and back as well as Alcaraz does.”

His life is an enormous blank canvas that he has just started to paint, and his joy allows him to work with a free hand, with the same liberation and fearlessness as a great artist following where his instincts lead.

Instinct and reaction time certainly play a major role in Alcaraz’s success, but his physical endowments are also noteworthy. At an even 6 feet tall, Alcaraz is on the small side among the ATP elites. But he is dense, smooth and muscular, not unlike—forgive the comparison—a pit bull. His legs are enormously powerful, enabling him to change direction explosively, and to recover swiftly from being stretched wide. He resets from an uncomfortable position in the blink of an eye, and he has nimble and sure footwork.

The power-laden tennis of today is essentially a race to take control of a point. That effort requires alertness, precision and shot-making skill—a constant state of mental red alert. That’s a great inhibitor for many fine players, so we see many prolonged, punishing rallies, neither player willing to risk losing the point, hoping for a win by attrition or an easy opening. That’s not how it works for Alcaraz, whose joy in the game makes him fearless, as if the score—as they always say—truly doesn’t matter.

It takes a lot to beat Alcaraz to the punch, but Tommy Paul did it in the quarterfinals of the recent Canadian Open. His takeaway: “You can’t start any points on your heels against him or he’ll take advantage of that. So you really have to go after your shots early in the rally and I was feeling really good on the first-strike tennis. That was the difference today.”

Alcaraz’s dazzling variety exists and bold strikes continue to pour off his racquet because, in addition to his natural gifts and relish for the game, his coaches have been careful not to tamper with his excellent instincts. Nor have they attempted to curb his joy. Many players are taught early on to dampen their zeal for risk—to follow established patterns, play the percentages, create something like a bullet-pointed script to attain the ultimate goal of winning.

But for Alcaraz, playing, in the purest sense of the word, still appears to be the goal. He follows his instincts, and in doing so with such success the percentages have been recalculated. I asked him at the Open if he ever feels a conflict on the court between his desire to hit sensational, crowd-pleasing shots and the primary goal of winning matches.

“Sometimes. . .” he said. “Obviously, I want to win every match that I play. But at the same time, I want to have fun, trying different things, to make the people enjoy watching tennis, watching my matches. Sometimes I talk to myself [during matches] about what is most important: If I win, or [am] doing great things?”

In accomplishing both desires, Alcaraz is reshaping the face of tennis, and challenging others to follow him down that path.