Alcaraz’s struggle to find consistency demonstrates – if we didn’t already know – how hard it is for the world’s leading players to replicate their best every week.
Jack Draper received a reminder in Miami, too.
Fresh from lifting the Indian Wells title, the British men’s number one was brought back down to earth with an opening defeat by talented Czech 19-year-old Jakub Mensik.
More positively, Emma Raducanu answered some of the sceptics with an impressively gritty win over eighth seed Emma Navarro and is aiming to reach the quarter-finals of a WTA 1,000 event for the first time.
The warp-speed rise of Jacob Fearnley is showing no signs of stopping yet.
As we keep reminding you, the 23-year-old was still a university student in the United States this time last year and ranked outside of the world’s top 500.
Now he has provisionally become the British men’s number two – overtaking former world number eight Cameron Norrie – and is on course to become a top-75 player when the rankings are updated next week.
Norrie has plummeted outside the top 80 as his struggles continue, while Dan Evans – playing this week at an ATP Challenger in Naples – is on the verge of dropping out of the top 200.
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