Alcaraz Overpowers Paul & More US Open Results | Monday Match Analysis

Gill Gross (0:03)

Welcome, everyone, to Monday Match Analysis, brought to you by Fitnexa. I'm Gill Gross, US Open 2026, recording this on Monday at 12:08 a.m., just past midnight. So it just became Monday. We are midway through the fourth round, which means half of the quarter-finalists have already been determined. But I thought it was a good time to do a show, talk about some matches, especially because today I was courtside for the Carlos Alcaraz, Tommy Paul match. So I got to watch every point of that match from a very cool vantage point. I'll also go through some other results. But let's start with Carlos. It's the first time that I'm really covering his tennis in this tournament. The first time I've really gotten a close watch on him from first ball to last. Of course, at the mercy of what I'm assigned to for US. Open Radio, where I can contribute there, today, Ash Day Session happened to be able to really lock in on Alcaraz versus Paul. And I was so impressed. So impressed.

I don't think Tommy Paul had a no show. I just don't think he could have done anything. I think Alcaraz was at an altitude that Tommy can't quite reach. You can certainly look at Paul's first serve percentage and say that's an area where he underperformed. I also thought that he was reaching for a little extra on the first serve because at the end of the day, the one thing that he actually was doing better than Carlos throughout the match was he was serving bigger. Did that come at the expense of him missing more first serves? Probably yes. I actually was told by Brad Stein earlier in the week, this was during qualifying week, that he was kind of working with Tommy on not trying to serve as many aces and to do a little bit more serve mixing. So a little more variety, a little more spot serving, just to sort of pitch a smarter game instead of trying to kind of gun aces into the corners always, which I don't think they feel suits Tommy Paul's serve or is the best way to maximize his serve. I thought he served great throughout the tournament. I watched Paul play Przemyśl and what was the match after that? Oh, Bublik, and I watched the entire Tommy Paul-Bublik match. I think his serve has been great, and I think there were moments against Carlos where his serve was the main thing keeping him in it. But other than that, I think he was just outclassed whenever points were developing because Alcaraz was on his A game. I don't think he's lost a thing. And the forehand was obviously the shot that you were going to circle coming off of the wrist surgery.

It's not weaker, it's not softer.

Alcaraz hit a 106-mile-per-hour forehand passing shot on the full stretch, on a ball that was coming in with a lot of pace. And I actually thought he mostly had to hit, like, obviously he was hitting at open stance, it was mostly sort of arm and wrist action to get the ball through the court. Like he did not have the opportunity to set with his legs and to really coil and rotate through the forehand. So it was kind of this, like, full stretch, like, wristy, whippy flick, and it went 106 miles per hour. And I look at shots like that, it's like, yeah, the wrist is okay. The shot that set up the match point, it's like a neutral forehand cross by Tommy. And this was probably shot 12 or 13 of the rally. So I think Alcaraz kind of wanted out. And he hit a short cross court angle, but it was also probably like a 95 mile per hour forehand. And you realize that the geometrical challenge of hitting the ball, it was also waist height. So it was like a waist high forehand. And he hits it on a short angle.

You're not really getting that downward trajectory. You don't have a lot of court to work with because you have to bring the ball down before the sideline. And somehow he both hits it really hard, brings it down before the sideline, finds the sharp angle.

The amount of rotation and speed and precision that that takes is off the charts.

I thought Alcaraz's forehand was the best ground stroke on the court against Tommy Paul by a country mile. So the big headline here is the wrist surgery hasn't taken any juice or venom out of that shot. And there's nothing, regardless of what happens for the rest of the US. Open. That is the huge relief here for Carlos Alcaraz and Alcaraz fans alike and tennis as a whole. That's a huge relief. I thought tactically though, he did a couple of things really, really nicely. First off, Tommy played Bublik in the prior round. And I do want to talk about that match at some point during this show, but I'm going to hold off. One of the things that Sasha really couldn't help himself with is hitting drop shots. Dino Prizmich, in the fourth set, was in a long 4-5 service game. So he had to hold to stay in the match. And it was a back-and-forth battle, and it was really pretty epic, and it was a fun atmosphere out on Grandstand. And Prizmich hit two drop shots in a row. He made both of them, but he lost both of the points because Tommy tracked down the drop shots. Bublik had virtually no success with his drop shot. Certainly no regular success. Tommy is a terrible guy to drop shot. He isn't somebody who typically drifts back, not unless he absolutely has to. So he holds his position well. He's lightning quick. He's got really good hands up at the net once he gets there. He also has good feel for where his opponent is, so he typically picks the right shot when he gets to drop shots. He's not a good guy to drop shot. It's one of the reasons why I think, especially early in the Paul Alcaraz head-to-head, which by the way, Alcaraz has been getting better and better in. Tommy was asked in press about kind of playing Alcaraz over the years and how it's changed. And the first thing Tommy said was, it's getting worse. It is getting worse. It's getting much worse.