Spanish star Alcaraz won the Rotterdam Open in February, in what was his first tournament since the Australian Open.

The ATP number three fell to Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals in Melbourne, where Jannik Sinner emerged victorious.

Currently serving a three-month ban, world number one Sinner is absent from Indian Wells, with Alcaraz the second seed.

Carlos Alcaraz working on improving his first serve ahead of Indian Wells

He gets his tournament underway on Friday, with Alcaraz having been working hard on getting his serve to the best level possible.

“I’m still on it, I’m still practising, I am still improving,” said the four-time Grand Slam champion, as quoted by the ATP Tour website.

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“I’m feeling great. I’m feeling like an upgrade on the serve. So just to keep believing on the movement, on the serve, because I know that there is going to be a great serve.

“My second serve, I trust a lot. My second serve I think is a really good and solid one. The first serve could be better.”

Carlos Alcaraz 10th in ATP serve leaders ahead of Indian Wells

Second seed Alcaraz has been given a bye into round two, where he faces the winner of Quentin Halys and Pablo Carreno Busta.

He enters the Californian tournament on the back of a somewhat disappointing run in Qatar, where he fell in the quarter-finals to Jiri Lehecka.

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But with an improved serve and indeed his superb history at Indian Wells, the 21-year-old is likely to go very far at the event.

And he certainly isn’t wrong about where he needs to improve, with Alcaraz third in the list for second serve points won with his figure of 57.1%.

But he drops way down to 36th for first serve points won (73.4%), and 19th for % first serve (64.8%), with his 283.8 serve rating placing him 10th in the leaderboard.