Carlos Alcaraz vs Joao Fonseca - Preview & Prediction - 2026 ATP Miami Open

Hey guys and welcome back to the channel.

We have Carlos Alcarez versus Jalfon Secre

for round two of the Miami Open Masters.

Very much looking forward to breaking this one down

to incredibly exciting players

going up against each other for the first time.

Before we do get into it though,

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19 year old Jalfon Secre, who a lot of people,

including I think partially myself

having very hyped about,

I think a lot of people talking about the I-test

and that he seems to have a little bit extra maybe

in his arsenal,

just that little bit extra raw talent

than some of the other plays of his age despite him

being ranked actually lower at the moment

than quite a few of them.

He's ranked 39 in the world

and men's shake TN for example,

ranked higher than him right now.

For Carlos Alcarez, he's world number one

and he is only 22 years of age still.

But for Secre, I think even though

there is only a three-year age gap,

I think growing up,

he would have seen an 18-year-old Carlos Alcarez

19 or Carlos Alcarez when Jal was only 15, 16.

And I'm sure he would have taken

a little bit of what Alcarez was doing

and tried to maybe add it to his game

because there are some similarities,

there's some, just technically

there are a few similar type of shots

that you might see from both players

and I think that's because Jal has

where we've taken a bit of inspiration as well

from Carlos to say the least.

They'll be interesting to hear him confirm

we'll deny that as well.

Might have to ask him that question

when I next week to him.

But look, I mean,

this is going to end up being,

I think a very interesting matchup

because Jal showed against Yannick

when he took Yannick to two tie break sets

that he can compete with the best on tour.

Can he beat them?

That's another question, of course,

but at least he could definitely be competitive

if he's playing some of his best centers

and he was playing a really good level in that matchup.

He has played one match already in this tournament

and he played Fabio Marjan

who actually conquered Alcarez a couple of years

back at the Rome Masters.

So he does have a win over the Spaniard on Clay, albeit.

But Jal played pretty well.

12 bases, 76% of first-ups in 75% of first-up points.

One, one, three out of eight break points

and save two out of the three break points he faced.

So just the one break of serve, one on one in three sets.

And I think

it wasn't his best performance.

I have to say,

definitely didn't look like the level we saw against Yannick,

but still there are some clear signs of improvement.

The first serve, for example,

I also think he's a bit more mature

and the fact that he's not trying to golfed

every single ball he knows

that he needs to choose the right moments

when to really put his foot on the gas.

For Carlos, he had similar issues

when he was around Jal's age as well.

For Carlos, he's coming into this with just the one loss,

which is Daniel Medvedev at the Indian Wales Masters

where he lost to him in straight set in the semi-finals.

Didn't play particularly good match.

And I have to say,

if he plays that level in Miami,

where the courts are actually a little bit quicker

than Indian Wales,

even with the adjusted Indian Wales courts,

which are now quicker,

from what I can tell when I've heard Miami

is still quicker than Indian Wales.

And that doesn't necessarily suit

Alcrasor's game as much.

He does like a slow hard court.

Definitely, in my opinion,

he's best hard court surface.

He can definitely play on any surface

and we know he's got the game to do so,

but in terms of level of comfort,

I don't think he's as comfortable in Miami

as he is at Indian Wales, in my opinion,

although he's one Miami before.

Yeah, and also he's got a lot of support.

There's a very large,

Hispanic contingent in Miami

and Zhao has incredible support from his Brazilian fans,

where again, they've got a big contingent in Miami as well.

So the crowd are going to be crazy.

And the atmosphere is going to be through the roof of this one.

It's going to be loud is what I'm going to say.

Interesting to see if one player does get more support

than the other,

whether it's pretty even.

So let's talk about technically how it might play out,

because they've never played each other before.

There's a few things that I just want to note.

So I think for Al Coraz against Medvedev

and this can be the case

and it hasn't really been the case much at all this year

given he's only lost once,

but Carlos' forehand can go off the boil.

And when he goes off the boil,

it really does affect the rest of his game

because when he's missing quite a bit on his forehand

or he's not finding enough death

who's not really getting through the court,

which is not really holding up well for whatever reason.

It affects the rest of his game, it affects his confidence.

You can just tell and it doesn't happen very often.

When it does happen, it's quite noticeable.

His forehand return generally is not as good

as his backhand return anyway.

But when that breaks down in addition to from the baseline,

it then becomes a thing very difficult for him

to play with that smile on his face.

It's a clear change from the level

that we've been used to seeing from him now

since the start of the year.

And really for the past two years,

he's been pretty much playing

at a very incredibly consistent level.

And I'm not trying to say that his forehand

was completely not working,

but it just was not at the dizzying high

so when we were used to seeing it out in matches.

And he was making unforeseeers on that side

and it just didn't look as solid as maybe it would do

in normal circumstances.

For Xiao actually, what I noticed against Marijian

is that he doesn't like the body serve.

When a body serve, sorry, even gets fired into him,

he won't wait the return, but he's just so cramped up

and he doesn't manage to get his body out

the way to hit a decent forehand or backhand.

It's just very much tucked up

and it ends up being quite a nothing return.

And I think Marijian let him off the hook

a few times with some misses on the plus one shot.

I'll take that short to ball.

Outcries will not make that mistake, I imagine.

Xiao was very used to being the one

to try and disrupt with rhythm against Yannick

and in this one, it's different

because he doesn't have, he's a low variety,

but not as much as Outcries, I would say.

So that's where I think it gets quite interesting.

In a serve return, Yannick, he's been serving big Xiao

so if he can get that first substitute up

and really get through the court,

then Outcries will have to try and see

how he's able to combat that

and open up break points of his own.

He needs to look after his serve as Outcries

because his serve, I guess,

Medvedev was not amazing in order to the end.

I think he knows that he can definitely play better

than that, especially from a serving perspective

and that is, of course, the most important part of tennis

because that is what you're really in control of

and that's something that you can get

three points of if you're serving at a good enough level.

I think he's really the crux of the matter.

So this should be an interesting one.

I think if I was Xiao, I'd be going hard

into that full hand with my own full hand cross court

and he hits that and can rip that.

Trying to use variety is not a bad decision

if the drop shot has to really be on the cause.

Outcries is so quick, he will get that

and he'll make you pay otherwise.

So drop shot's got to be spot on and then actually...

Fonseca's got a pretty good lob.

I've seen it and sometimes he'll take on the volume almost

but it's a good lob, he's got decent awareness as well.

He's on the best move of still,

he's definitely improved, he's moving much better

but he's not an elite mover like Carlos or Yanic.

That's just the reality of the situation.

In the full hand, as I said,

I think Fonseca should be going big into that full hand

anyways, just generally, on the backhand to backhand,

Xiao's got a very compact backhand swing.

So his outcries, it's interesting why...

I would say that I think backhand to backhand,

I think probably Carlos as well,

if I'm being...

Yeah, if I'm being Frank.

I think Carlos just has a bit more variety

of the backhand slice.

It's a bit more potent than Fonseca's

and then actually, generally from the back

of the court backhand to backhand,

I think Carlos is able to change direction a lot quicker.

A lot earlier with a lot more purpose,

because that full hand cross is really intriguing to me.

Backhand to backhand is also interesting,

I can see Carlos utilising the slice,

trying to get Xiao low, not don't let him set too much

from the base line and just, yeah, be intelligent in that sense.

Xiao also does come forward to the next,

that'll be interesting to see if both players do that

and how often both players get past as well.

I think it's pretty tough to go against Carlos.

I think Xiao will actually take a set.

So, I'll cry as in three.