Carlos Alcaraz, teenager 19-year-old tells Àlex Corretja:
-Call me everything, except Carlos. It could be Carlitos, Charli… Not Carlos, because it seems I’ve done something wrong.
And Corretja nods and shrugs his shoulders, although in the meantime he seems to be saying to himself: ‘How can you call such talented sportsman Carlitos?’
Well, that’s the way it is.
In three days, those that go from Friday to Sunday, Charlie Brown knocked down Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Sasha Zverev, three of the top four rackets in the world, to win the Mutua Madrid Open, the second Masters 1,000 of his career and his fourth title of the year (fifteen days ago, the Murcian won seized the last Godó Trophy), and dawned today as the sixth tennis player on the ATP circuit.
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-When I go out on the track I don’t think about the opponent. Last year I experienced these emotions for the first time. That made me learn, and now I no longer feel like this, but rather I go out to play thinking that I can win –he says.
Alcaraz and Zverev, in the moments before the start of the final, this Sunday
He has so much tennis inside him that any rival is dwarfed. Even Sasha Zverev, a 1.98 m tall German, does it.
There’s no way, Zverev tells himself midway through the second set, after hitting an easy volley into the net.
By then, the German has been roaming around like a headless chicken for quite some time.
What torture of Alcaraz!
The Murcian tries everything, he is liking himself and also everyone who watches him. The previous games or the magnitude of the event have not weighed on him.
Where is your limit, the ceiling on your ambition?
You have to rewind.
On Friday he knocked out Nadal, the best tennis player on earth ever seen. And the next day, on Saturday, he returned to the scene and traced back a set to Novak Djokovic and thus melted the best tennis player of the moment.
And now?
Now he tears apart the best server in current tennis.
Zverev serves at 224 km/h, yet his serves seem like mere pecks. Alcaraz arrives at the rackets and anticipates in the game when the German must resort to the second serve.
Zverev does not feel comfortable, he is in tow from the first moment. In the second game he already changes rackets. Zverev is a double champion in Madrid, he has won here in 2021, but the 12,500 throats shout:
all ambition
Alcaraz is the puppy who has discovered the shoe drawer: he destroys everything and leaves it jumbled
-Carlos! (not Carlitos).
And the Murcian dominates all facets of the match.
He lengthens and shortens the points as he pleases, moves Zverev away, who misses the baseline, and then punishes him with a dropshot, and finally finishes him off with a blushing lob.
Alcaraz’s exercise is fascinating, a rare bird in contemporary tennis, a world of punchers and servers with few nuances, except in the case of the inevitable Big Three.
Alcaraz prepares the backhand blow, this Sunday
If you ask any expert, they all give the same answer:
–Alcaraz? She has it all. Tennis, the physical and the mind –Manuel Orantes told this newspaper, days ago.
(Orantes is the second tennis player with the most victories in clay matches: he has 544; only Guillermo Vilas surpasses him, with 679).
Thinking of Roland Garros
The Murcian renounces the Masters 1,000 in Rome
Carlos Alcaraz announced in the press conference after the final at night that the tennis player will not play this week the Masters 1,000 in Rome in which he was registered. The reason is to recover from his right foot before playing Roland Garros, a Grand Slam that starts on May 16. The young Murcian tennis player sprained his ankle on Friday in the quarterfinal match against Rafael Nadal, in a fall. In Rome Alcaraz was the seventh seed and was exempt from the first round. On his way through the draw he could have crossed paths with Zverev again, in the quarterfinals at the Foro Italico.
Outmatched on all fronts, Zverev doesn’t know where to go. He looks back at his box and only sees Sergi Bruguera, his coach, who asks him to keep trying, to fight.
Alcaraz does not let him.
Alcaraz is a pilon hammer, teenager ready to break it all. It is the puppy who has discovered the shoe drawer.
There is no dialogue, but a monologue, a sweep. At times, Alcaraz chains ten consecutive points. He signs serves-volleys and on top of that he serves strong, at 220 km / h.
Jump in the ranking
After knocking out Nadal, Djokovic and Zverev, the Murcian will wake up today as the sixth racket on the circuit
In 31 minutes he dispatches the first set, and then continues to press:
“Head, head,” says Juan Carlos Ferrero, his technician.
-Carlos could not have had a more special week. It is the first time that he has beaten so many important players,” says Ferrero.
Zverev delivers one last punch at the start of the second set, actually the last gasp. He holds his own in the first game, but it doesn’t happen from there. Alcaraz breaks his serve in the third game (blank), and Zverev changes his racket again but that doesn’t get him anywhere and he gives up the service again in the fifth (Alcaraz resolves that set with a lob, along big, the way he likes it), and the outcome of the German is unfortunate.
He loses the game with two consecutive double faults: he has been slumped for a while.
He leaves after losing six straight games.
“I’m having fun,” Alcaraz says goodbye playfully.
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