Carlos Alcaraz: The New Face of Tennis Excellence
The Rise of Carlos Alcaraz
Nowadays, tennis is one of the toughest sports to break into the pros. Greats like Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have become household names in tennis over the years. After them, players such as Sasha Zverev, Nick Kyrgios, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev appeared and tried their best to oppose the Big Four.
Finally, a young boy, called Carlos Alcaraz, broke into the tennis stage. And with perseverance, determination and great desire, he quickly became one of the most talented players the world has ever seen. In this article, we are gonna talk about Carlos „Carlitos" Alcaraz and follow his inspiring story of how he became the star he is nowadays.
Early days, how did he start and how did the love for tennis emerge?
Carlos Alcaraz Garfia was born on the 5th of May, 2003, in a village called El Palmar, near Murcia. He picked up a tennis racket for the first time at the age of 3, and the person who discovered his talent was his father, Carlos Alcaraz Gonzalez, who taught tennis at the local academy. His father saw the incredible potential that his son showed and decided to start teaching him.
In 2018, at the age of 15, Alcaraz started training in the academy of a great former Spanish tennis player – Juan Carlos Ferrero, where he continued to develop his skills and hone his technique. In that year, Alcaraz also became the youngest Spanish player to win a professional match since Rafael Nadal in 2002. This was just the beginning of his impressive journey in the world of tennis.
The rise of the future star
Alcaraz began his professional career in 2019, at the age of 15, when he won the ITF Futures tournament in Portugal. In 2020, he made his ATP tour debut at the Rio Open, where he reached the second round, defeating his compatriot Albert Ramos Viñolas. Later that year, he took another step up in his career, winning his first Challenger title - in Trieste, Italy.
Alcaraz's breakthrough moment came at the 2021 Australian Open, where he reached the second round and pushed Stefanos Tsitsipas to five sets, but lost. Several months later, Alcaraz won his first ever ATP tournament – on the clay in Umag. In August 2021, he made his top 50 debut in the ATP rankings after reaching the quarterfinals of the Citi Open in Washington.
A few weeks later, Alcaraz reached the quarterfinals of the US Open at the age of 18 years and almost 4 months, becoming the youngest participant in this stage of the tournament in nearly 60 years. At the end of 2021, he made his biggest achievement – Carlos won the Next Gen ATP Finals. Probably, this was the first moment when his name started to become more and more recognizable.
Showing his unbelievable talent on the biggest stages
2022 was the first year of Carlos Alcaraz's career at the highest level. During the whole season, the Spanish won 5 titles – two ATP 500s in Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona, two Masters 1000s in Madrid and Miami, as well as his biggest of the year – the US Open.
US Open 2022
Let's talk a little more about his biggest career achievement - winning his first Grand Slam. Alcaraz entered the 2022 US Open as the No. 3 seed. Throughout the tournament, he defeated Marin Cilic in the round of 16, as well as other big talents like Yannik Sinner in the quarterfinals and Frances Tiafo in the semis. All these victories were achieved after 5 sets. Very memorable was the clash against the Italian Sinner. The match set the record as the latest finish (at 2:50 AM EST) and second longest match (5 hours and 15 minutes) in US Open history.
In the final, Alcaraz met the Norwegian Casper Ruud, and defeated him 3-1, winning his first-ever Grand Slam. The Spaniard also became the youngest player ever to reach the world No. 1 - 19 years, 4 months and 6 days.
Carlitos, or Charly, as Alcaraz likes to be called, had a great start to the 2023 season as well. Until May, he managed to win 4 titles - in Buenos Aires and Barcelona, as well as the 2 Masters in Indian Wells and Madrid. Unfortunately for him and his fans, Carlos missed the first Grand Slam of the year – the Australian Open, due to injury, but played extremely well on the second - Roland Garros. He reached the semi-finals, where Novak Djokovic and an injury in the third set stopped him. But, soon there would have been a sweet revenge for the Spaniard…
In June the grass court season started, and Carlitos performed incredibly given the fact that this surface was the one Alcaraz was the least adapted to until that moment of his career. Despite the doubts, Alcaraz recorded an incredible run of 12 consecutive wins on grass, finishing the season on his toughest surface undefeated.
The perfect grass court season – 12/12
First, he won the tough ATP 500 series tournament at Queens Club, defeating Alex De Minaur in the final. What followed was undoubtedly the best tournament of his career - Wimbledon 2023. Carlitos convincingly got through some tough opponents like Matteo Berretini, Holger Rune and Daniil Medvedev before securing a matchup with Novak Djokovic in the final.
The "Clash of the Titans" is likely to be remembered as the "Greatest tennis match of 2023". The Serb won the first set 6-1, but Alcaraz raised his level of play and won the next two sets 7-6(6) and 6-1. The fourth set went into Djokovic's account, but in the end, Alcaraz closed out the 5-set battle at the All England Club, winning the final part 6-4.
Summary
Overall, Carlos Alcaraz has the potential to be one of the best the game has ever seen, maybe even better than the Big Three – Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. He has the chance to win his 3rd Grand Slam of his career in September and defend his US Open title – all this at the age of 20. In fact, only a few players have achieved three major titles at this age – even the young Rafael Nadal has won 2 before turning 21. So, for Alcaraz to surpass his compatriot, he has 2 chances to do it – at the US Open 2023 and the Australian Open 2024.