Weekend Winners: After Rublev, Norrie and Alcaraz won their first 2022 titles, whose will prove to be most significant for the rest of the season?

TC LIVE: Discussing Alcaraz's first 500-level triumph

This was get-on-the-board week in men’s tennis: Andrey Rublev, Cam Norrie, and Carlos Alcaraz, three players with Top 10 or better ambitions for 2022, all won their first titles of the year. Each of these players now should have a base of confidence they can use to launch themselves toward bigger results at the majors and Masters in the coming months. Watching them play on Sunday, the question that came to mind for me was: Which will fly the highest this season?

Rublev’s 7-5, 7-6 (4) win over Felix Auger-Aliassime in the Marseille final only earned him a 250-level title—relatively slim pickings for a world No. 7. But it also felt essential. After powering his way to five titles in 2020, he had won just one in 2021, and that came 12 months ago in Rotterdam. While his youthful rivals Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, and Stefanos Tsitsipas were busy winning and challenging for the most important events, Rublev appeared to be spinning his wheels by the end of the year. He was overplayed, in need of a second-serve revamp, and seemingly lacking in some of the subtleties that had lifted Medvedev into the Top 2 stratosphere. Rublev looked like he was pounding his forehand into a brick wall.

Late in the first set against Auger-Aliassime, though, he finally broke through that wall. He elevated the pace and precision on his shots, took his game to a place the Canadian couldn’t go, and hung on for dear life down the stretch. Having not won a title in so long, Rublev struggled to get across the finish line; finally, late in the second-set tiebreaker, his first serve got him there. Maybe more important than the 250 ranking points, Rublev can be happy that he bounced back from a loss to Auger-Aliassime last week in Rotterdam, and didn’t let the 21-year-old Canadian get an edge on him going forward.

“I had to increase my level, otherwise I would have had no chance against Felix,” Rublev said. “From 5-4 [in the second set], he started to play even better, and I was thinking it would go three sets. But somehow I was able to raise my level and in the end it was tough.”

While Rublev was spinning his wheels over the last few months, Cam Norrie seemed to be having a letdown to start 2022. After his fast and surprising rise into the Top 15 last year, a run that included a Masters 1000 title in Indian Wells, Norrie came out pancake-flat in 2022. He lost all three of his matches at the ATP Cup and was blown out in the first round of the Australian Open by Sebastian Korda. Did the Brit’s clever, sensible game have a ceiling, after all? Had his opponents discovered a previously unknown weakness?

Not yet, it appears. In Delray Beach, Norrie avenged his loss to Korda in a third-set tiebreaker—“I needed a win like that,” he said afterward—edged out Reilly Opelka for the title in two more tiebreakers on Sunday. Now, for the first time, Norrie has more than wins than losses—six to five—on the season.

“I thought I played a very clean match,” Norrie said. “I was happy with the way I played and obviously with the result. The tiebreaks I played extremely aggressively, the second one especially, I managed to put a couple of balls away and I was reading the play great.”

When Norrie is in good form, the word that comes my mind is “clarity.” There’s a sense that, because he doesn’t have the point-ending power of most his opponents, he needs to have a purpose with each shot. His returns go to specific locations; his approaches put him in the best position to volley, and his opponent in a difficult position to pass; his ground strokes are designed not to go for winners, but to elicit errors. He did all of those things well in the tiebreakers against Opelka, and played his best point of the day—backhand slice approach, backhand volley winner into the open court—to set up match point.

“I’m definitely more aggressive than I was when I came on tour,” Norrie said. “I’m able to dictate the play from the beginning of the point.”

They say power and speed kill, but a clear game plan and tactical skills never go out of style, either.

Speaking of killer power and speed, did you get a look at Carlos Alcaraz this past week in Rio? The 18-year-old—yes, the Spaniard still 18, and will be for two more months—became the youngest man to win a 500-level event since that tournament tier was established in 2009. And he did it in properly it’s-good-to-be-young fashion. On Saturday, he beat top seed Matteo Berrettini in three rain-delayed sets, then came back to beat Fabio Fognini later that night, and Diego Schwartzman the next day, in overwhelming 6-4, 6-2 fashion, for the title.

“I can’t believe it, honestly. It has been a great week for me playing a great level,” Alcaraz said. “First tournament on clay since a long time, so I’m really happy with the performance during the whole week.”

I’m guessing the rest of the tennis world isn’t as surprised by his roll through Rio as Alcaraz himself is. But if we’re not surprised by this prodigy by now, we can still be amazed. Amazed at the balls he gets, amazed at the forehands he whips for winners, amazed at the drops shots he carves within an inch of the net, amazed by his depth of his focus and competitive energy. Amazed, on Sunday, by the backhand pass he curled past Schwartzman from five feet behind the baseline, that gave him a match-changing service break at 4-4 in the first set. Alcaraz already seems to have an answer for any question his opponents pose.

“I think this is my game,” he said. “It’s a lot of variety. It’s the key [to how] I won the match.”

So which of Sunday’s wins will mean the most in 2022? Norrie and Rublev each steadied their ships, while Alcaraz—who joins them in the Top 20 for the first time—is full speed ahead right now.

For Norrie, the realistic goal may be to continue to go deep on a weekly basis, challenge for Masters 1000s, and see what happens at the Slams. His game would seem to be the most limited of the three, but his ambitions aren’t.

For Rublev, who reached two Masters 1000 finals last year, the goal would seem to be to win his first title at that level, and to reach his first Slam semifinal—he’s been to four quarters, but never beyond. For that to happen, he needs to be able to raise his game mid-match. Which is just what he did against Auger-Aliassime.

As for Alcaraz, he’s the guy coming up fast in everyone’s rearview mirror. There seems to be no doubt that he’ll reach the Top 5—or the Top 1—and the Grand Slam promised land eventually. Seeing if he can get there this year will one of the most intriguing and potentially thrilling storylines of 2022. Now that he’s on the board, would you bet against him?