I watched Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon and clocked one thing Oliver Tarvet will love

Oliver Tarvet certainly talks a confident game. The lowest-ranked player in the men's draw, sitting 733rd in the world, claims that he is capable of beating any of the 732 men ahead of him. But he knows he will be right up against it when he meets five-time Grand Slam winner Carlos Alcaraz in the second round at Wimbledon.

Tarvet is only a year younger than Alcaraz but this has the feeling of a real David and Goliath battle. The worrying thing for Alcaraz, and the promising thought for Tarvet, is that most people want David to win. Even more promising than that for the young British hopeful is that Alcaraz seemed to struggle when his opponent was winning the popularity contest on Monday afternoon.

It would be purely speculative to pin Alcaraz's sub-par display against Fabio Fognini on one thing in particular. Maybe he struggled with the red-hot conditions. Perhaps he was grappling with the pressure of arriving at the All England Club as the reigning two-time champion. It's possible he just had an off day.

But one noticeable thing from the stands of Centre Court was the correlation between Alcaraz upping the ante and the crowd getting behind him.

For much of the match, the retiring Fognini enjoyed the lion's share of the support. That may have come as a surprise to Alcaraz given that Fognini said in 2019 that he wished a bomb would drop on the Wimbledon grounds, such was his bitterness towards a career-long struggle on grass.

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In any case, it was an unusual instance of the crowd cheering against Alcaraz and the Spaniard being off his game, right up until spectators appeared to realise the gravity of the situation and rally behind the defending champion in the fifth-set decider.

From that moment on it was one-way traffic. Buoyed by the Centre Court crowd standing behind him, Alcaraz steamrolled Fognini 6-1 in the decider and secured his safe passage to the second round.

Once there, though, you can bet your life it will be Tarvet with the backing of his home fans. And although Alcaraz is a sporting megastar, he is not immune to the emotions of such a grand occasion.

"Playing the first match on Centre Court is not easy," he said after edging past Fognini. "I've been practicing well but Wimbledon is different from all the other grass-court tournaments. It feels different."

If the support for Tarvet affects Alcaraz in the same way he appeared to be affected by Fognini's backing, the underdog's chances of pulling off a major upset will be a lot less slim.

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