If you happened to be idling by the U.S. Open practice courts on Monday, you might have overheard the collective gasp when world No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz emerged for his practice session looking like a slimmed-down Private Pyle . Or maybe the idea was Furiosa of Mad Max . Or David Beckham circa Y2K . Whichever way you spin it, tennis’s boy wonder had chopped off all his hair. And while actual matches were taking place all over the grounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, it seemed, for a brief moment, that all anyone could talk about was the 22-year-old’s unfortunate buzz cut, a shave almost as close as his landmark French Open final against Jannik Sinner this past June.

The U.S. Open press corps, always eager to gin up story lines that have nothing to do with tennis it

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