Reminding Tomas Machac of Carlos Alcaraz’s glowing endorsement for him as top-five material draws only matter-of-fact acknowledgement from the Czech disruptor.
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Granted, it's been more than a year since the Spaniard – then world No.2 – was left with no answers to the man with a ferocious forehand, succumbing in the Shanghai Masters quarterfinal.
Machac is not the type to get carried away with others’ praise as he reflected on Alcaraz’s remarks ahead of his sixth Australian Open campaign.
The inner belief exists, but it carries a hint of frustration that injuries and an inability to pull it together week in, week out have slowed his ascent.
After a second career title in Adelaide last week, where his body – namely a problematic knee that hampered him last season – held up well, there was fresh cause for optimism.
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“It's showing me that I can play great tennis, but the ranking or the achievements is about consistency,” Machac said.
“So, this is something that I try to do and not to [just] play great tennis one weekend.
"This is something that I think is the main important thing to be one of the best players because every player is playing great.”
Only months before that Shanghai quarterfinal in 2024, Alcaraz landed his first Wimbledon trophy and by his own admission was playing at a high level.
A week before, he had contested arguably the match of the season in a final defeat against Jannik Sinner in Beijing.
But against Machac it was different. “I felt like I was playing against a top-five player,” Alcaraz said in Shanghai. “Not even top 10, no, top five. His level was so high. I thought that he was going to give me an opportunity, a window, but he didn't.
“From the first game until the last one, his level was so high. His ball speed, it was unbelievable.”
Machac knows that his consistency is the difference between being a top-30 player and that top-five disruptor Alcaraz lauded.
“This is something that is very true. I was playing top five,” he said. “I beat Dimitrov in Vienna, I beat great players afterwards. So, for me, main priority is to make the schedule as best as possible, then the health and team come for sure. And then I try to play consistently.
“I was trying to play everything almost and that was not a good idea.”
A surprise Olympic mixed doubles gold medal alongside Katerina Siniakova in Paris two years ago came as a fitting addition to an impressive seven months that included the Shanghai Masters semifinal and his maiden tour title in Acapulco last March.
It was an unlikely run on the clay, inspired by the 1993 movie Cool Runnings – about an against-the-odds Jamaican bobsled team.
“It was something beyond tennis,” he said. “Even if it was mixed, gold is gold. I was the guy who was watching Cool Runnings. I was loving the movie. So for me, this was something that I tried to connect with.”
If Machac wasn’t already the most dangerous floater in the Australian Open men’s draw as the highest-ranked unseeded player, his Adelaide title run earlier in January, which subsequently lifted him back up to world No.24, only bolstered his standing.
It also closed the gap on his good friends and fellow rising Czechs, top-20 players Jiri Lehecka and Jakub Mensik.
Two years after Lehecka claimed the trophy in Adelaide, it was Machac’s turn. On the same day, Mensik, the top-ranked of the trio, lifted his second title in Auckland.
“I think we play great in Australia because [of] the surface and the conditions – I think we like it, all three of us,” Machac said. “It always shows that we can play with the best players in the world, that we can bring this level.
Should he find a way past former world No.3 Grigor Dimitrov in the opening round, Machac could potentially meet former AO finalist and 31st seed Stefanos Tsitsipas.
“It's not an easy draw, but I didn't arrive in Australia to search for an easy draw. I am happy that I managed to win the title [in Adelaide],” he said.
“Everything that I will play in Melbourne is something that I'm very glad after the injury – that I can be in this moment right now with a trophy and with a great level of tennis.”