Alcaraz wins at the US Open He is now the No. 1 in world tennis

Tennis, no one has ever achieved the same record at his age

the character

We expected it. But not so fast. We knew that Carlos Alcaraz was destined for number 1, not that he would be there at 19 years and 4 months – the youngest in the computer age – at the end of two unpredictable weeks. Five sets snatched from Marin Cilic, Jannik Sinner and Frances Tiafoe, four to Casper Ruud (6-4 2-6 7-6 6-3), who since yesterday is n ° 2 in the world, viceroy with merit, in the US final Open. A matchpoint canceled to Sinner, 2.6 million dollars collected, a thousand points to be delivered to the highlights of the tournament.

The instinct of a bullfighter locked in the shell of a shy teenager, who, holding the cup that John McEnroe gave him, promises “to stay at the top for a long time like the Big Three”, but is moved by thinking about “my mother and my grandfather, who couldn’t come here. ‘

Revolutionary, but without losing tenderness. He is not the youngest to win a Grand Slam – Wilander, Becker and Chang did it at 17, Borg at 18, Nadal and Sampras anyway before him – but the strongest of a new line of 20-year-olds who promise to leave behind. the Iliad and the Odyssey written by Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, to produce new classics: we have already seen the first chapters in New York against Sinner, Tiafoe and Ruud. Two years ago Carlitos lost in the round of 16 at the Challenger in Biella, today he is all behind.

Taking advantage of Djokovic’s absence, it’s true; of the ailments of Nadal and Zverev, of the eclipse of Medvedev, of the precarious form of Berrettini. But with the grace of the predestined. “For me it is only 60 percent of his potential,” ventures Juan Carlos Ferrero, his coach and former predecessor on the throne. “The US Open and the number 1 are a starting point.”

Comparing him to the Big Three is unfair, reserving him a useless Grand Slam figure, because Carlitos is also a unique piece, and follows the spirit of a different time. The tennis of the last 3-4 years has accelerated further but when it needs it Carlitos, the demon of speed, knows how to shift an extra gear, as in the fourth set against Ruud.

It serves, he replies, stretches into the corners, drops to the net as soon as he sees the opportunity, calibrates lob and drop shot almost always lethal, curls up and spreads out in flight like a cat, ready to scratch even in aerobatics. He is a tennis that forces you to train instinct, and Carlos’ instinct is to attack. «The thing that impresses me the most – says Matteo Berrettini, who spoke about it in Bologna as guest of his sponsor Illumia – is how he was able to recover quickly after he felt the pressure for the first time in Montreal and Cincinnati. This is thanks to the structure that surrounds it ». Ferrero, to whom father Carlos senior entrusted him five years ago, after having weaned him in the semi-agricultural quiet of El Palmar, province of Murcia, and the manager Albert Molina who began to believe in him when at 11 Carlitos did not beat the others kids, but on the pitch he already knew how to do more than anyone else. He needed an eye, to see even then that the boy, as Pepe Imaz, Djokovic’s guru said, emanated “a special light”. Now everyone has noticed. –