Carlos Alcaraz’s haircut is the buzz of the US Open

NEW YORK—When Carlos Alcaraz walked into the interview room after his first-round win on Monday, I assumed there was only one possible topic any true reporter would want to ask him about.

But I was disappointed.

The first questioner brought up his rivalry with Jannik Sinner. Won’t there be time for that kind of talk later in the tournament?

The second questioner asked what Alcaraz “admires” about Rory McIlroy; the golf great was in Arthur Ashe Stadium for his match, and talked to him earlier in the day. Alcaraz said he seems like a “really good guy” and “it’s just amazing to watch his golf.” Next.

Finally, with the third question, we got down to the business at hand.

I wanted to ask about what happened to your hair.

This, obviously, was what every inquiring tennis mind wanted to know. If you’re like me, when you got your first glimpse of Alcaraz’s new ’do on Monday, the word that came to mind, and maybe escaped from your lips, was: “Woah.” Frances Tiafoe was caught on video getting his first look at the haircut. He looked properly stunned.

Alcaraz—or in this case his brother—had buzzed his thick black locks nearly down to his skull. Maybe you thought of Vin Deisel in Fast and Furious, or a particularly aggro bad guy from another action or war movie. Carlitos will never play the villain, of course, no matter how he styles his hair. But when he came out for the coin toss, he looked more hardcore and intimidating, despite being a foot shorter than his opponent, Reilly Opelka.

That sense continued for me as Alcaraz made his way through the early games of the match. His shaved dome made him look sleeker and lighter; it went well with his explosive, speed-demon style, and his sleeveless Nike shirt. He was pure athleticism, pure tennis, stripped of everything extra. Alcaraz has always moved like a boxer to me, now he looked like one, too.

Tiafoe, after calling the cut “definitely terrible,” softened the blow by telling Alcaraz that at least “you’re aerodynamic.”

Was this Alcaraz's intention? Apparently not. The credit, or blame, goes to his brother Sergio.

“Before the tournament I just really wanted to get a haircut,” Alcaraz said. “Suddenly my brother just—he misunderstood with the machine. He just cut it. Then, you know, the only way to fix it is just shave it off. It’s just what came, this haircut.”

“It’s not that bad, I guess,” he concluded, not quite convincingly.

Alcaraz sounded slightly surprised by how much attention his hair was getting.

“Since I show the people my haircut, I didn’t see [anyone talking about anything else],” he said. “Some people like it. Some people don’t like it. I’m just laughing about the reaction.”

The extent of that reaction shows that Alcaraz, while he’s not No. 1 in the world, remains the sport’s star of the moment, especially at the celebrity-driven US Open. A new buzzcut would be notable on any male player’s head; Djokovic, Sinner, Fritz: all of them would get attention for it. But would any of them have made it part of their persona as quickly as Alcaraz did on Monday?

Serena had her night-session outfits. Maria Sharapova won the 2006 title in her “little black dress.” Roger Federer brought his tuxedo pants and all-black Darth Federer persona to the evenings in Ashe. This year, Djokovic showed up in Darth Djoker black on Sunday night. Now Alcaraz has his own take on the idea: The street fighter—with a smile.

Could Alcaraz’s dome become a new version of the “playoff beard”? In tennis, it was made famous by Bjorn Borg, who stopped shaving during the Wimbledon fortnight, and won the title five straight times.

Alcaraz, like Borg, will have to win to make it happen. But the first couple days of play haven’t hurt his chances. He beat a genuinely difficult opponent in Opelka, while one of the seeds in his section of the draw, Daniil Medvedev, made an infamous exit.

“I think I was faster…,” Alcaraz started to joke, before stopping himself, when he was asked if his hair affected his game.

If it makes him look faster, and a little more ruthless, to his opponents, that can’t hurt, even if it isn’t true. If he wins his second title in New York with this accidental ’do, he might even start a trend. And his brother might have a new job.