Carlos Alcaraz thought the biggest challenge he would face in the early stages of this year\u2019s US Open was the 145mph serves of his 6ft 11in first round opponent, Reilly Opelka. Instead it turned out to be his own brother.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz wanted a haircut before the tournament and, in the absence of his usual barber, Victor Mart\u00ednez, asked one of his brothers to give him a trim. It did not go well.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like my hair was really long already, and before the tournament I just really wanted to get a haircut,\u201d the world No 2 told reporters after dismissing Opelka 6-4, 7-5 6-4 on Monday night. \u201cSuddenly just my brother just \u2013 he misunderstood with the machine. He just cut it. Then, the only way to fix it was just to shave it off. To be honest, it\u2019s not that bad, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcaraz has flown Mart\u00ednez to other tournaments, such as this year\u2019s French Open, when he needs a haircut but felt the flight from Spain to New York was too far. So far, the verdict on his brother\u2019s barber skills are mixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people like it, some people don\u2019t like it,\u201d he said. \u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m just laughing about the reaction of the people. It is what it is. I can\u2019t do anything else right now, so I\u2019m just laughing about everything they are saying about my haircut.\u201d<\/p>\n
One person who is not a fan is Frances Tiafoe. The pair could meet in the semi-finals after they won their first-round matches. Tiafoe described Alcaraz\u2019s new cut as \u201chorrendous\u201d when asked about it.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t know who told him to do that, but it\u2019s terrible. From a guy who gets haircuts week in, week out, who prides himself on good haircuts, it\u2019s horrendous,\u201d Tiafoe said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, it\u2019s Carlos, and that\u2019s my guy. But yeah, he needs to get with me. He needs to get with me for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcaraz had his own thoughts. \u201cFrances is lying. Frances is lying,\u201d laughed Alcaraz. \u201cNo, come on? He showed up here saying that it is terrible? I know he\u2019s lying. I know he likes the haircut. He likes it. He told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were fans of the Spaniard\u2019s new look though. Masters champion Rory McIlroy met Alcaraz at Flushing Meadows on Monday and gave his verdict. \u201cI like it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s good. It\u2019s a good look.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcaraz, whose five grand slam titles include the 2022 US Open, next plays on Thursday, against world No 65 Mattia Bellucci. He said his hair grows so fast it may not be a talking point by then.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time that I get a haircut, in two or three days it\u2019s gone,\u201d he said. \u201cIn three days you\u2019re going to see another hair[style].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz thought the biggest challenge he would face in the early stages of this year\u2019s US Open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-94922","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\/94922","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=94922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}