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NEW YORK — The worst time to play the worst game of your career is when your opponent is playing the best game of his career.

Carlos Alcaraz found that out on Thursday evening during the US Open, when Botic van de Zandschulp, the world number 74, knocked him out of the tournament in three sets: 6-1, 7-5, 6-4.

It was Alcaraz’s worst defeat since two weeks ago, when he played a flawless match against Gael Monfils in Cincinnati.

After van de Zandschulp had raced through the first set, Alcaraz, who had been listless, tried to get going again. He broke back from a 2-1 deficit in the second set, and got himself and the crowd going again, as he has done so many times before after losing positions.

This time he sputtered, instead of sparking. Van de Zandschulp never really let his tennis level drop and broke at 5-5 and 4-4 to give himself the chance to serve for the second set, and then for the match.

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The Dutchman was at his peak, playing the tennis of his life. But it wasn’t a case of redlining, where a player serves up a buffet of ridiculous winners and shots from another universe. Instead, van de Zandschulp defended resolutely, covering an incredible amount of the court and producing difficult shots when under pressure and on the straight. On the attack, he rushed to the net, where he won 28 of the 35 points played, preventing Alcaraz from moving to the front half of the court, where he is so naturally comfortable.

Van de Zandschulp has never beaten a top 10 player at a Grand Slam tournament before, but he is in the top 20 with six top 10 wins on the ATP Tour.

Botic van de Zandschulp had never defeated a top 10 player at a Grand Slam tournament. (Photo: Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images)

Alcaraz, the French Open and Wimbledon champion, hadn’t lost so early at a Grand Slam in more than three years. He had just turned 18 at the time. He was unrecognizable from the four-time major winner he is today.

Such a seismic result invites extensive reflection on “what it means for tennis,” but ultimately it doesn’t mean all that much. The bigger question is what it means for Alcaraz himself.

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“I have to think about it, I have to learn from it,” Alcaraz said at the press conference as he chided himself for not learning from previous defeats like this. One reason for that could be that so many similar performances have led to a victory. He has a remarkable 12-1 winning record in five-set matches, but has yet to win a match from a two-set deficit.

It’s easy enough to excuse an opponent who has nothing to lose by playing the best match of his career. It’s harder to excuse—and explain—a sustained streak of inaction, many of which have been lost to history because Alcaraz ended up winning the matches they were in.

At the French Open and Wimbledon, Alcaraz had long, sluggish recoveries, barely finding the court for much of his second-round encounter with Dutch qualifier Jesper De Jong in Paris. He was equally terrible during long stretches of his Wimbledon matches against Frances Tiafoe and Ugo Humbert — matches like the one against van de Zandschulp, in which Alcaraz found himself in a trough while his opponent was peaking. On those occasions, he would hit a ridiculous shot and then roll down the hill from there. Not so on Thursday night.

Narrowing the gap between their highest and lowest levels of match play is one of many difficult skills to acquire, while the ‘Big Three’ Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal made it look easy.

The height of their floor was just as important as the height of their ceiling, meaning that the gap between their best and their worst was quite small. They could all have bad days, but they rarely had days where they looked the way Alcaraz can look at his worst.

Carlos Alcaraz, pictured here at the 2024 Australian Open, doesn’t always know how to deal with adversity. (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Their absurd consistency is also a backdrop to Thursday’s result. Novak Djokovic has only gone out that early in a major once in his last 72 appearances. Roger Federer has also only done so once in his last 66.

Alcaraz is now hoping that this loss won’t hit him as hard as other setbacks. After losing in the semi-finals of last year’s US Open, he didn’t look good for the rest of 2023. He didn’t win another title until Indian Wells in March, eight months after his previous trophy.

The Spaniard, whose rise to the top echelons of tennis was completed by winning the 2022 title in New York, saluted the crowd as he left the court in a season he will remember most for winning back-to-back Grand Slam titles. That does not detract from the nature of the defeat, in which his decision-making appeared muddled and his groundstrokes routinely misfired.

After the match, Alcaraz admitted he expected an easier task. “I think he played great. He played really good tennis. I thought he would give me more points,” he said.

“I think my level stayed at the same point the whole match, and that wasn’t enough to win the match or to give myself a chance to get into the match,” he said.

Van de Zandschulp, who considered quitting tennis earlier this year, said he was speechless when it was over. And so was the sporting world, even though the peaks and valleys of this second round may soon be gone for the tennis landscape.

(Top photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)