SHANGHAI — Zizou Bergs offered a blunt rebuttal to Carlos Alcaraz's complaints about the balls at the Shanghai Masters after dumping the seven-time Grand Slam winner out in the third round. World No 39 Bergs claimed the biggest win of his career on Monday with a 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) victory over the reigning Australian Open champion and world No 3.
Alcaraz was overheard telling his team "I can't play like this" during the match and revisited the issue afterwards, saying the court felt markedly different from his opening match. "It's weird that in just two days it can feel that I can feel the court, feel the conditions way different," the 23-year-old said, adding: "Today the ball was bigger and it was a little bit slower. I don't know why."
Bergs, however, insisted there was no issue with the equipment, pointing out the balls were identical to those used at the previous week's Japan Open — a tournament Alcaraz won to lift his first trophy since returning from a four-month layoff due to a wrist injury. "Balls are completely the same obviously as the last tournament. It's not an issue with the balls," Bergs said. "I do think sometimes there is a little wrong bounce on the court that happens from time to time. It's definitely there. I noticed in the warm-up that this can happen sometimes. Maybe one of the 10 or 20 shots you have it can be a bad bounce. But I think the court and the balls are in general very good."
The Belgian marked the upset by writing "what just happened" on the camera, admitting the scale of beating a player of Alcaraz's stature left him stunned rather than celebratory. "You know, Carlos is a hell of a name, and for me it's been a little struggle," he explained. "You see these big players on TV, also in the past, you know, [Novak] Djokovic, Rafa [Nadal], you have the chance to play them, and then you can play them, but you also have to be ready to beat them."
"I've always been like, Ah, too much respect for them. So that's why, when it happened, it was more I was so much in the moment still that I hadn't too much energy to celebrate like crazy. I was just more like, 'Oh, what the hell's going on?' So that's why I wrote down, like, what happens." The defeat extends another disappointing run in Shanghai for Alcaraz, who arrived in China fresh from his Japan Open triumph.