US Open: Who is Botic van de Zandschulp, the man who tamed Alcaraz?

The tennis fraternity may still be struggling with how to pronounce Botic van de Zandschulp, the name of the Dutch outsider, who shook up US Open when he stunned title-contender Carlos Alcaraz in the second round on Thursday – that too in straight sets.

While the Spaniard world No.3 was in for a rude awakening, curiosity will abound about the Dutchman, currently ranked 74 who just executed one of the biggest upsets in the game in recent times. Standing at a 11-18 for the season at the beginning of the week with a career-best ranking of 22 two years back, the 28-year-old successfully disrupted the Spanish ace’s usual baseline rhthym and posed questions of the man who was in line for his third slam of the year after French Open and Wimbledon.

 ‘’I'm a little bit lost for words. It’s been an incredible evening, the first night session for me on Arthur Ashe. The crowd was amazing,’’ Botic said later.

‘’I got a lot of confidence from my last match [against Denis Shapovalov]. I played really solid and from point one tonight, I believed I could have a chance and you see how it sometimes turns out,’’ said Botic, who best moment in the US Open before Thursday was being a surprise quarter finalist in 2021 as a qualifier.

That edition of US Open saw him at his best as Botic accounted for some good players to move to the second week like Casper Ruud and Diego Schwartzman and was the only qualifier to make it that far.

It was three years back that he had faced Alcaraz for the first time in the first round of Australian Open – both being qualifiers and their match duly scheduled on an outer court of Melbourne Park. Van de Zandschulp was No. 151 in the ATP Rankings and Alcaraz, then 17, was not much higher at No. 141.

First meeting

“What I was most impressed about was how he started. He was fully pumped, aggressive in a good way. That took me a little bit off actually, I had never played him,” the conquerer of Alcaraz told ATPTour.com. “Of course I’d seen him play and you hear all the talk about him. But that’s what I was most impressed about: the ferocity he was playing with, how he was hitting, the power he had. That was insane,” said Botic, who had lost on that occasion.

Speaking after his monumental win on Thursday, Botic said: ‘’Of course I had some nerves. But if you want to beat one of these guys you have to be unbelievably calm and keep your head there, otherwise they will take advantage.’’ A reflection of his domination was that Botic won 78 per cent of his first-serve points, compared to Alcaraz's 60 per cent. He has now improved to 1-2 in his Lexus ATP head-to-head series with Alcaraz and will next play 25th seed Jack Draper in the third round on Saturday.

It will be interesting to find out if the Dutch can maintain the same intensity against Draper as he also has a record of blowing hot-and-cold. Only last week, Botic lost in the first round of the Winston-Salem Open, his first hardcourt tournament since Miami in March.

Meanwhile, Alcaraz leaves the year’s final major with a 39-9 match record this year. The 21-year-old has won three titles in 2024: Indian Wells, French Open and Wimbledon and he also claimed the silver medal at the Paris Olympics.