Vamos. Carlos Alcaraz is back, and needed. The Journal’s Jason Gay calls him a joyful tennis pinball, a positivity rocket of shot-making who never seems out of any point and craves all the noise. On Thursday he announced his return to what Gay refers to as the $23 Honey Deuce Invitational, also known as the U.S. Open, which begins next week.
Tennis needed the news. It has been a bummer summer on the men’s side. The world No. 1, Jannik Sinner, has not played since Wimbledon and dropped out on Friday. Novak Djokovic stumbled out of his most recent match after appearing to throw up on the court. The one bright spot was Alexandra Eala and her stadium-packing Filipino fan base, single-handedly lifting the sport.
The part worth copying
Alcaraz hurt his racket-side wrist in April. Wrist injuries are a tricky recovery, not to be rushed, and he did not rush it: he skipped Wimbledon and repeated Open tuneups, citing the need for more time. He is the defending champion. He has seven majors and an Australian Open already this year. He had every incentive to come back early, and he did not.
Coming back cold into best-of-five tennis, Gay notes, is like leaping onto a speeding courtesy Benz. Everyone will be out to sink him if he looks vulnerable early. He decided the risk of rushing was worse than the risk of waiting. That is a twenty-three-year-old making a decision most fifty-five-year-olds with a knee and a business get wrong.
The part that is a consumer story
This year’s singles winners each take home a record $5.5 million after organizers raised the total payout 20% in response to players asking for a bigger share of revenue. Good for them.
Meanwhile the Open is getting kicked around on social media for ticket prices. Grounds passes sold out at $65 and now hover around $350 on the secondary market. Gay’s diagnosis: America’s guardrail-deprived resale market, in which tickets are bought at face value and legally resold at extortionate prices. Other tennis countries do not have this nonsense. It is why FIFA liked the recent World Cup here so much — it simply cut out the vultures and did the price-gouging itself.
It is a sensitive spot for the Open, which is the primary fundraiser for the nonprofit United States Tennis Association and tries to thread the needle between family event and caviar-chicken-nugget luxury bath. Gay’s advice: skip the three-figure grounds pass that will not get you near Arthur Ashe Stadium anyway, buy a $23 Honey Deuce and a $44 visor, and stake out the practice courts.
Two things to take home
First, the Alcaraz rule. The thing you are good at will be there when you are healthy. It will not be there if you come back broken. That applies to wrists, to knees, and to the client who wants to “get back in” the week after a scare because the market is moving without them.
Second, the $350 rule. When something you want has a face value and a street value, the gap is a tax you are choosing to pay for not planning ahead. Sometimes it is worth it. It is always worth knowing. And if it happens: there may be a mixed-doubles pairing of Alcaraz and Serena Williams, 44, neither of them confirmed. Gay calls it a sublime ticket. We would simply note that it is the rare thing at Flushing Meadows this year that is still priced at zero.