Watch the Carlos Alcaraz Drop Shot Through the Numbers
He saved a Laver Cup match point with one on September 26, 2026. The tour data shows why the riskiest shot in tennis is one of his safest.
Match point down in a Laver Cup tiebreak at The O2 on September 26, 2026, Carlos Alcaraz did the thing coaches warn juniors about. He hit a drop shot. It worked, he saved the point, and a few minutes later he beat Taylor Fritz 6-3, 4-6, 13-11. I went looking for whether that was nerve or numbers, and the answer is mostly numbers.
The drop shot is part of my game. So in those moments, in those really close and important moments, I tried to use it because it was a really good weapon for me in this match.
How often he hits it, and how often it wins
The cleanest public data comes from a February 2023 ATP Tour analysis by Golden Set Analytics for Tennis Data Innovations. It found that Alcaraz hit 2.83 forehand drop shots per match and won 67.7 percent of those points. The tour average was 0.85 per match, won 51.5 percent of the time.
| Shot | Alcaraz per match | Alcaraz won | Tour average per match | Tour average won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forehand drop shot | 2.83 | 67.7% | 0.85 | 51.5% |
| Backhand drop shot | 1.34 | 52.1% | 1.05 | 39.7% |
On clay his forehand version rose to 3.81 per match. On break points, the same study said, about one in six of his forehand drop shots came at that moment, and he won 71.4 percent of them. That is the stat that explains Saturday in London. He does not put the shot away when the stakes rise.
Why the forehand makes the drop shot work
A drop shot on its own is a gamble. What makes his pay off is everything around it. The ATP analysis measured his rally forehand at about 134 km/h against a typical 113 to 115 km/h, which pushes opponents deep behind the baseline. From there, the study found, they had to cover about 10.9 meters in roughly 2.1 seconds to reach the drop. Stay back and you are chasing the short ball; creep forward and the forehand goes past you.
The part I enjoyed most: after Alcaraz rose in 2021, several top players started hitting more forehand drop shots, and their success rate fell, from 52.4 percent to 48.2 percent, per the same study. Copying the shot without the forehand behind it made it worse.
A second dataset, and a caution
Jeff Sackmann of Tennis Abstract took a broader view in March 2024, using the volunteer Match Charting Project: more than 4,600 men's matches since 2015. Across that sample, drop shots appeared in 4.6 percent of points and the player hitting one won 53.8 percent. Alcaraz hit one in 5.4 percent of points and won 62.1 percent, and he ranked first by points gained per thousand.
What Saturday added
The official Laver Cup results page records the match tiebreak at 13-11. NBC Sports reported that he saved Fritz's first match point with an ace and the second with a drop shot, then closed on his third when Fritz reached another drop but could not get it back. The same report counted 42 winners and 30 unforced errors for Alcaraz, against 20 and 9 for Fritz. That is his whole style in two numbers: more risk, more reward, and a drop shot at the moment most players would play safe.
If you want to spot it next time he plays, watch the rally before, not the shot itself. When his forehand has driven an opponent a couple of meters behind the baseline, he is already thinking short.
Sources
Every factual claim above traces to one of these. Links open in a new tab.
- Alcaraz's drop shots secure a revenge win over Fritz that evens the Laver Cup at 5-5
- What Shot Has Carlos Alcaraz Popularised?
- Effects and After-Effects of the Carlos Alcaraz Drop Shot
- Does Carlos Alcaraz have the Most Effective Drop Shot Ever?
- Scores and Results, London 2026
- Carlos Alcaraz and Jakub Mensik win, join Rafael Jodar in giving Team Europe Laver Cup lead
