Carlitos goes fast

The Alcaraz house in El Palmar is a few meters from the Club de Campo. The associates remember a little boy Alcaraz dragging his racket to the venue at just four years old. Even though he was a distracted child, already at the time when he entered the field he was transformed. He immediately distinguished himself in the youth categories and it was then that his father made a decision that few understand. Despite his experience with him, and despite being a professional tennis teacher, he would not be his son’s coach.

Tennis is full of family relationships that are destroyed by the pressure of competition. Andre Agassi, in his biography Open, remembers the torture training his father subjected him to. Carlos Alcaraz, precisely because he came from that world and knew the risks of not separating sentimental ties from competitions, opted instead to be a parent and not a coach. “I should have put on a hat and said to him: do you see Dad with the hat? Trainer. Without the hat? I am your father. Children don’t understand the difference, ”he says. He decided that he would help his son by becoming the supervisor of his coaches, who at first were teachers at the tennis school he ran. Carlitos too looks today with relief at this strategy of his father: «I wouldn’t have liked it either. For both of us it is much better that he is there, but in a more familiar way ».

Even now that the boy is racking up success after success, and no one doubts that Alcaraz has come to stay, they try to isolate him from all the noise around him. Alcaraz in his team can count on the support of psychologist Isabel Balaguer, ever since she played in the youth categories. In addition to strengthening his natural ability to handle pressure, she helps him find the emotional balance and confidence to endure moments of maximum tension. “When I’m not brave enough on the pitch, I can only blame him for myself. I say to myself: “Why didn’t I take a risk?”. If I lose, at least I have the feeling that I have done everything possible to avoid it, ”he says about his style of play.

The recklessness makes him one of the most aggressive tennis players on the circuit since the days of the legendary Pete Sampras. And, although he carries some risks, Juan Carlos Ferrero does everything to make it continue like this. «We don’t allow him to play defense. With the shots he has, he plays a lot better when he attacks. They are few with the strength of him ». The of him is a way of playing, always at the limit, which puts even parents in difficulty when they follow the games on TV. His mother, Virginia Garfia, admits that sometimes he has to stop looking and even suspects that it helps him: “Sometimes when I look at him he loses and when I leave then he comes back,” he jokes.

Enthusiasts follow Alcaraz’s evolution from a more comfortable distance, hoping to have finally found Rafael Nadal’s successor. It is a responsibility that does not seem to weigh on the young man from El Palmar: more worried about getting his license than comparing himself with the tennis legend, more comfortable eating a hamburger in the village with friends than during the post-match press conference, more interested in improving his volleys than enjoying prizes and awards. And it is precisely this virtue that brings him closer to Nadal and that invites optimism about Carlitos Alcaraz: a humility that turns into fierce competition on the pitch. If he can keep it, despite everyone around him flattering him and filling him with attention, Spanish tennis will have found another predestined.

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Alba Roces service.