Alcaraz: Clock Controversy A Waste of Time

By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, March 7, 2026
Photo credit: Antoine Couvercelle/ROLEX

Americans spring forward into daylight savings time tonight.

Carlos Alcaraz vows he won’t waste his time protesting recent shot-clock controversy.

Alcaraz surged through five of the final six games, out-dueling Karen Khachanov 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-3 to advance to the Qatar ExxonMobil Open semifinals last month.

During that match, Alcaraz ran down a drop shot that would have likely eluded 99 percent of the ATP Tour, scampered left then exploded off the court for a sensational high backhand volley in the ninth game.

As is his custom, Alcaraz held an index finger behind his ear extending the roaring crowd’s celebration of a fantastic point. However, that celebratory surge cost Alcaraz as chair umpire Marija Cicak hit him with a time violation after the point.  In a rare show of anger, Alcaraz argued with chair umpire Cicak for a few minutes.

“I’m not allowed to go to the towel?” Alcaraz inquired a couple of times. Cicak replied she didn’t start the service clock until Alcaraz had returned to the back wall to retrieve the towel, therefore implying he had no argument.

Asked his position on the clock controversy today after his Indian Wells sweep of Grigor Dimitrov today, Alcaraz said he feels protesting is a waste of time as officials aren’t listening to him anyway.

“To be honest, nobody came to me to ask me what is my opinion about it,” Alcaraz said. “So it’s like, yeah, it’s gonna be like that, I would say. I don’t want to waste my time, to be honest, because that’s have
been in other situations that you go to complain or to give your opinion and then nothing change at all, so I don’t want to waste my time. They already know my opinion, what’s it been like for me.

So let’s see if they’re gonna change it or not, but I just really want to be focused on other things.”

The world No. 1 said most chair umpires use common sense conduct when it comes to the serve clock, but suggested a couple likely never played tennis and therefore don’t understand the subtleties at play.

“We could see there are different umpires. So it’s just about with one or two probably, the same guys that just have been problem with a lot of matches,” Alcaraz said. “But there are other umpires that they are flexible about it. I would say if they understand about tennis, they know how to do it.

“The guys who are really strict and not having that… let’s say, is because they don’t
understand tennis at all.”

Asked his reaction, former Indian Wells champion Taylor Fritz said generally chair umpires manage the clock correctly though the American cited former Andy Roddick nemesis Fergus Murphy as a chair umpire who has been particularly quick on the clock.

“I don’t have that much of an issue with it. I think sometimes, you know, we can be a bit smarter with
it if, like, if someone plays a long point and they finish the point at the net on the opposite corner, and we are playing somewhere where it’s humid and you kind of, like, you need to towel off your hands in between points,” Fritz said. “Then, okay, maybe you give the person an extra five seconds. And
that’s where the issue kind of comes in, because it just automatically starts after the point.

“I had issues in the past when the umpires were the ones that were starting it, because I felt like some umpires would start it faster than others, so I always had an issue with specifically Fergus starting the clock super fast.

“And I’d never got called for time violations and no one ever got called for time violations against me, but then there was probably 10 in total in my matches when he was in the chair, and then it started just being automatic, like when the point ends, it just starts. It’s not really up to the umpire.”