Carlos Alcaraz takes a selfie with followers on the Australian Open. Photograph: AFP
MELBOURNE:
Carlos Alcaraz has a straightforward attraction and broad Tom Cruise-like smile, however beneath the cool exterior is a extremely pushed particular person laser-focused on setting information.
The 22-year-old did simply that on Sunday, beating Novak Djokovic within the Australian Open last to grow to be the youngest man to win all 4 majors, surpassing the legendary Rafael Nadal.
Fellow Spaniard Nadal, who was at Rod Laver Enviornment in Melbourne to witness it, was 24 when he accomplished the profession Grand Slam.
Alcaraz has immense respect for Nadal and Djokovic, however the world primary’s hero rising up was Roger Federer.
“Federer, the category he had, the best way he obtained folks to see tennis, that was lovely,” Alcaraz, who has now gained seven majors, stated in 2023.
“Watching Federer is like a murals. It is magnificence, he did every part magnificently. I turned enchanted by him.”
Alcaraz shares loads of the identical attributes — daring, vary, tactical flexibility, and magnificence.
The modest, muscular star from the small city of El Palmar in Spain’s south-east hit the giant-killing jackpot at Madrid in 2022 when he turned the one man to defeat each Nadal and Djokovic on the similar clay-court occasion.
For good measure, he achieved it on back-to-back days on his option to the title.
When he gained his maiden Slam, on the US Open the identical yr, he turned the youngest champion of a males’s main since Nadal on the 2005 French Open.
He was additionally the youngest man to ascend to the world primary rating.
His Roland Garros coronation in 2024 ensured he was the youngest to win Grand Slam titles on clay, grass and onerous courts.
Ominously, Alcaraz remains to be getting higher and he has developed nerves of metal, refusing to surrender when the percentages are stacked towards him.
He demonstrated that never-say-die angle in his semi-final in Melbourne towards Alexander Zverev, battling by means of cramp and a 3-5 deficit within the fifth set to drag off an enormous win.
“I simply hate giving up. I simply do not need to really feel that means,” he stated.
“After I was youthful there have been loads of matches that I simply did not need to battle anymore or I simply gave up.
“Then I simply obtained mature, and I simply hate that feeling (shedding).
“Each step extra, each one second extra of struggling, one second extra of preventing is at all times price it,” he added.
Nadal inheritor obvious
At his aspect for many of his profession was coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, the 2003 French Open winner, earlier than they break up late final yr.
Ferrero introduced Alcaraz into his academy in Valencia, 120km from El Palmar.
His uncooked potential quickly attracted sponsors, with marquee manufacturers resembling Nike and Rolex speeding to enroll Nadal’s inheritor obvious.
The tennis staff across the prodigy was expanded and shortly included a bodily coach, a physiotherapist and the assist of psychologists and medical doctors.
A sign of his potential was apparent on the Rio clay-court occasion in 2020 when he was simply 16, and ranked 406 on the earth.
He shocked Albert Ramos-Vinolas to register his first ATP win, and it set him on the trail to superstardom.
Alcaraz, who discovered the sport at a tennis college run by his father, captured his maiden ATP trophy in 2021.
Fiercely protecting of his non-public life, he has lots of the similar pals he frolicked with as a toddler.
He performed doubles with Emma Raducanu ultimately yr’s US Open, setting tongues wagging, however the British participant has insisted they’re “simply good pals”.
Alcaraz’s off-court pursuits embrace golf and soccer, and he’s an enormous Actual Madrid fan.
One other interest is chess, which he has stated helps him in his day job.
“I like chess. Having to pay attention, to play towards another person, technique, having to assume forward.
“I feel all of that’s similar to the tennis court docket,” he stated in a 2023 Vogue interview.
“It’s a must to intuit the place the opposite participant goes to ship the ball, it’s a must to transfer forward of time, and attempt to do one thing that may make him uncomfortable.
“So I play it so much.”
