{"id":93586,"date":"2025-08-26T09:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93586\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T09:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T09:12:08","slug":"rivals-stunned-by-carlos-alcarazs-new-look-at-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93586\/","title":{"rendered":"Rivals stunned by Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s new look at US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>\u2019s haircut rather than his tennis was the talk of the US Open<\/a> as the second seed eased into round two in New York.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard arrived at Flushing Meadows on Monday ahead of his clash with Reilly Opelka looking almost unrecognisable after shaving his head.<\/p>\n

After impressing in a 6-4 7-5 6-4 victory, Alcaraz quizzed the crowd on his new look, earning loud cheers when he said: \u201cI\u2019ve got to ask to the people if they like the new haircut or not. Do you like it guys? I think they like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcaraz\u2019s friend and rival Frances Tiafoe<\/a> did not approve, though, with the American seen behind the scenes appraising the lack of locks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely terrible,\u201d said Tiafoe. \u201cHe\u2019s my guy though. It\u2019s funny, I looked at him and I was like, \u2018I guess you\u2019re aerodynamic\u2019. I don\u2019t know who told him that it\u2019s good. I don\u2019t know who told him to do that, but it\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his press conference, Alcaraz revealed the real reason behind the cut, saying: \u201cI felt like my hair was really long already, and before the tournament I just really wanted to get a haircut.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother, he misunderstood with the machine. He just cut it. Then the only way to fix it is just shave it off. It\u2019s not that bad, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Carlos<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz debuted a bold new look (Adam Hunger\/AP) (AP)<\/p>\n

Alcaraz flew his barber Victor Martinez from Spain to Paris earlier this year to give him a more fashionable fade cut midway through the French Open but said New York was too far for a similar intervention.<\/p>\n

The new style had divided opinion, the French Open champion added. “Some people like it, some people don’t like it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“To be honest, I’m just laughing about the reaction of the people. It is what it is. I can’t do anything else right now, so I’m just laughing about everything they are saying about my haircut.”<\/p>\n

Alcaraz said he was unsure if his new streamlined style made him faster on court but said it would all be academic in a few days given how fast his hair grew.<\/p>\n

“Every time that I get a haircut, in two or three days it’s gone,” he said. \u201cIn three days you’re going to see another hair(style).”<\/p>\n

Among those critical of the new trim was American world number 17 Tiafoe, who, despite sporting a close-cropped style himself, described Alcaraz’s new haircut as “horrendous”.<\/p>\n

“Frances is lying. Frances is lying,” laughed Alcaraz. “No, come on? He showed up here saying that it is terrible? I know he’s lying. I know he likes the haircut. He likes it. He told me.” <\/p>\n

There were only positive reviews, though, for Alcaraz\u2019s performance on court as he impressively maintained his record of never having lost in the opening round of a grand slam.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz seized his opportunities when they came on Opelka\u2019s fearsome serve, avoiding the possible danger of tie-breaks to set up a meeting with Italian Mattia Bellucci.<\/p>\n

After clinching victory, Alcaraz used his racket to perform a golf swing \u2013 a nod to the watching Rory McIlroy.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday was a really difficult one,\u201d he said. \u201cReally tough player, tough serve. I couldn\u2019t get the rhythm that I wanted to get but really happy with everything I\u2019ve done today. Overall I think I did a really great performance tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-93586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}