Third seed Carlos Alcaraz suffered a seismic second-round exit on the US Open with a thumping defeat by unseeded Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp.
Alcaraz was bidding to turn out to be the third man in historical past after Rod Laver and Rafael Nadal to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open in the identical calendar yr within the Open period.
However the Spaniard by no means recovered from a shaky begin towards world quantity 74 Van de Zandschulp, who triumphed 6-1 7-5 6-4 for the highest-ranked win of his profession.
The defeat ends Alcaraz’s 15-match profitable run at Grand Slams.
“I feel my stage stayed on the identical level all of the match, and it wasn’t sufficient to win the match or to present myself the possibility to get into the match or attempt to give myself probabilities,” mentioned Alcaraz.
“I didn’t really feel properly hitting the ball. I feel I made a number of errors. Once I needed to come back again or I feel I needed to come back again, it was too late.”
The 21-year-old made 27 unforced errors all through the match whereas Van de Zandchulp made 21.
“He didn’t make a number of errors that I believed he was going to take action I used to be confused just a little bit,” Alcaraz mentioned. “I didn’t know methods to handle that.”
Alcaraz, who received silver on the Paris Olympics after shedding to Novak Djokovic on 4 August, says he wanted an extended break earlier than going to Flushing Meadows.
“I got here right here with not as a lot power as I believed that I used to be going to come back with. However I don’t need to put that as an excuse,” he mentioned.
Earlier, world primary Jannik Sinner outclassed American Alex Michelsen 6-4 6-0 6-2 for his fiftieth victory of the yr.
Australian Open champion Sinner is taking part in at his first match because it emerged he had been cleared of any wrongdoing after twice testing optimistic for a banned substance earlier this yr.