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tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\nBy Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, February 21, 2026
Photo credit: Antoine Couvercelle\/ROLEX<\/p>\n
Most tennis players cite \u201cprofessional athlete\u201d as their chosen profession.<\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz continues to thrive as a one-man professional amazement production company.<\/p>\n
In an astounding display of dynamic all-court tennis, Alcaraz annihilated Frenchman Arthur Fils, 6-2, 6-1 in today\u2019s Doha final to capture his 26th career championship.<\/p>\n
tennis express pro player gear<\/p>\n
World No. 1 Alcaraz improved to a perfect 12-0 in 2026\u2014and sustains his superb record on outdoor hard courts. Since last April, Alcaraz is 30-0 on outdoor hard courts, he\u2019s won nine of his last 13 tournaments and delivered an eye-popping 68-5 record since last April.<\/p>\n
Twenty days after Alcaraz powered past Novak Djokovic 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5 to capture his first Australian Open championship and make history as the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam, he tore Fils apart in arguably his most complete performance of this undefeated season.<\/p>\n
In a year that began with questions after the 22-year-old Spaniard split with long-time coach Juan Carlos Ferrero in December, Alcaraz has supplied authoritative answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great start of the year,\u201d Alcaraz said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy to be honest because I had to be strong mentally with my team. I\u2019m just really happy about everything I\u2019ve done in this season. The first tournaments of the year, I\u2019ve played great tennis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really really happy about this week. I think we\u2019ve done a great week. This trophy means a lot to me. I just want to say thank you to my team, who makes a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite absorbing a thrashing from a champion in full-flight today, Fils enjoyed a fantastic week reaching his first final since Tokyo in October of 2024. Sidelined with a stress fracture in his back for much of the 2025 season, the unseeded Fils showed the tremendous talent he is this week, but ran into a brilliant buzzsaw in Alcaraz and was never really in this match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cArthur, it is a pleasure to share the court with you,\u201d Alcaraz said. \u201cTruly, more than making results, for me, it makes me really happy to see you on the court again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you struggled with injuries to be able to let\u2019s say forget that and start again and to be playing great finals is great\u2026 For sure, we are gonna share great moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
On championship point, Alcaraz completed a magnificent match reading his opponent\u2019s shot and drilling one final drive to close a 50-minute mismatch with a bang.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all I want to thank the crowd, I\u2019m very sorry about the final,\u201d Fils said after falling to 0-3 lifetime vs. Alcaraz. \u201cIt\u2019s been eight long months with my injury. It\u2019s been a long time. You just have to think about the last eight months when I was struggling not playing tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank my team. Sorry, guys, today was not the day but I think we did a hell of a job. Carlos you played very good, man, a hell of a job [it\u2019s] a joke. Keep playing like this: you did an incredible job.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the first point, it was clear Alcaraz had his A game going.<\/p>\n
Cracking some searing running forehands, Alcaraz stayed in the point until Fils, who played a perfect dropper earlier in the game, netted an ambitious drop shot attempt. On that miss, Alcaraz scored his second break of the final for a 4-1 lead after a mere 16 minutes.<\/p>\n
Serving for the first set, Alcaraz amped up the astonishing entertainment level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Frenchman blasted an aggressive backhand pass crosscourt that likely would have eluded the majority of the ATP Tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not Alcaraz.<\/p>\n
Sliding into a jaw-dropping backhand drop volley winner, Alcaraz drew applause from his opponent for that bit of mind-blowing magic. On his second set point, Alcaraz drew the error snatching a one-set lead after 27 minutes of play.<\/p>\n
Contesting his 34th career final, Alcaraz served 70 percent, won 12 of 14 first-serve points and did not face break point in that opening game.<\/p>\n
In his first tournament working with 2001 Wimbledon winner Goran Ivanisevic as coach, Fils\u2019 delivered a fantastic tournament performance, but playing catch-up against Alcaraz is a losing proposition.<\/p>\n
For the second straight set, Fils dropped his opening service game.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz stormed through nine points in a row racing out to a 2-0 second-set lead.<\/p>\n
A beautiful Alcaraz winner drove Fils to the breaking point. After the Spaniard broke for 3-0, Fils slammed his Babolat stick off the court leaving a mangled mess of a racquet in a move reminiscent of a young coach Goran Ivanisevic.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz plowed through a convincing hold for 4-0. When Fils hit a forehand crosscourt winner to snap his five-game slide, he acknowledged the cheering crowd rattling his racquet high in the air.<\/p>\n
That was Fils\u2019 last stand.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz fired his fifth ace out wide holding for a 5-1 lead after 48 minutes.<\/p>\n
On championship point, Alcaraz read the Frenchman\u2019s drive down the line, turned his hips and shoulders into his reply and ripped a ballistic forehand winner to end a 50-minute beat down with one final stroke of brilliance.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old Alcaraz embraced the 21-year-old Fils at net. After that hug, Fils shrugged his shoulders and raised both eyebrows in a physical expression of\u00a0\u201cThat was just too damn good.\u201d It\u2019s a feeling even elite opponents have shared when facing Alcaraz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, February 21, 2026Photo credit: Antoine Couvercelle\/ROLEX Most tennis players cite \u201cprofessional athlete\u201d as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-490574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}