Tennis smiles again Carlos Alcaraz. After his epic victory at Wimbledon last year and a brief crisis, his victory in the last Masters 1000 in Indian Wells – and his good start in Miami – has restored his confidence and the horizon is assumed bright. After Miami, will come the European clay court tour with all the possibilities at its disposal. Ahead, the option of winning his third Grand Slam at Roland Garros and snatching number one in the world ranking from Novak Djokovic. Tennis smiles on Carlos Alcaraz again. But there was one day, just one day, when the tennis player got angry, he slammed the door in his face and went somewhere else. His worst game, his cruelest defeat. Luckily, he was only 10 years old and had a lot of career to recover from.
“What does ‘go by bike’ mean?” Alcaraz was asked last month in Argentina, during the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires, and he explained it naturally: “I don’t use that expression, but I know what it means. It’s when They beat you 6-0 and 6-0. I have only lost like that once. I was 10 years old, it was against a friend from Murcia called Antonio Lopez. Antoñito, cabrón”.
Antonio López is today the coach of the JJ Enjoy Tenis academy in Cartagena and he also remembers that day perfectly. He was in the juvenile category of the Open Promesas Ciudad de Totana in 2013 and, despite the exaggerated victory, he did not lift the trophy afterwards. In a telephone conversation with EL MUNDO he says that he would have forgotten about that match, but it is Alcaraz himself who reminds him from time to time. “When they showed me the video of the interview in Argentina and I heard the question, I already knew that my name was going to come up. He remembers it very well, better than I do. Now I tell it to the children and they don’t believe me,” admits López, possibly the rival that Alcaraz encountered the most times in his childhood. The current number two in the world ranking was the great promise of the Murcia Country Club; López, the reference of the MDZ Tennis Academy of Mar de Cristal.
Carlos Alcaraz, in the match against Monfills. CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
How many times did they face each other? Many, 10 or 11 in a few years. On the day of the rosco I was 12 years old and he was 10. The perfect match came out for me, he was smaller and that was still noticeable on a physical level. He played in my category because his was short. By then he was already doing things that others weren’t doing. From the beginning it was clear that he was born for tennis, that he had a lot of ability to play. In fact, he already did those drops that he does now, he even abused them: I had the hang of it. The same thing happened to me, I really liked drop shots, so in one of our games there could be more than 50 or 60.The now tennis coach remembers that, after several victories, there was a match in which he discovered that he would never beat Alcaraz again. It was in 2016, in a Murcia Regional Championship of the cadet category held in Alhama de Murcia. In the semifinals, López won the first set, but Alcaraz came back and that’s it, it was over.
“He went to the Spanish championship that year and, the following year, in a tournament in El Palmar he beat me 6-2, 6-3. I no longer had anything to do. There I was already very good, another level, I was 15 years old. It was when they invited him to the Villena challenger and he beat Sinner,” he remembers, Alcaraz’s childhood rival who is finishing Business Administration and Management at UCAM and who no longer competes, he only teaches children. “He played soccer and tennis and, because of the results, I chose tennis. I was wrong, I regret it a little. Soccer was more fun, tennis was harder,” he says.
And what is your current relationship with Alcaraz like? Very good. We have a WhatsApp group of all our friends and when he comes here to Murcia we get together and have a good time. He remains the same, a good guy, very humble. I try to take vacations and go see him at some tournaments. Last year I was in Rome, at the Godó, at the Mutua de Madrid, at Roland Garros and at Wimbledon. There he played spectacular, incredible. Some friends wrote to him, we asked him if he had tickets and we were going to encourage him there.2024-03-26 23:33:00
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