– Name?
—Carlos Alcaraz.
– Age?
– 12 years.
—What would be your dream as a professional?
— Win Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
—And who is your favorite player or your idol?
– Roger Federer.
Little Alcaraz, sitting on a wooden bench, 2015, responded with a reedy and shy voice to the questionnaire that is today attested to in a popular video. The Murcian, then a promising boy who was completing the transition from the junior to the junior circuit, enjoyed an unforgettable experience in Paris, where he traveled accompanied by his first coach, Carlos Santos. He now remembers the coach on the other end of the phone, in conversation with EL PAÍS. Pronounced Murcian accent. “Yes, I started with Carlos when he was four or five years old, when he could barely lift two hand-widths off the ground. He was thin, like a toothpick. And very good, by the way. Like now,” he says.
The fact is that this noodle who was already showing signs of success and who at that age already used to compete (and win) against people older than him is just one step away from being crowned Roland Garros champion. Today (3:00 p.m., Eurosport and DMAX) he will face the German Alexander Zverev and in the preamble to the final he bounces everywhere that desire verbalized with innocence (or perhaps not so much) to conquer the two great European temples. Last year he took Wimbledon, and he now aspires to triumph for the first time in Paris, those were beautiful days. I’ll be back, I’ll be back, I already thought. “He had things very clear. He was already a responsible boy and respected the coach one hundred percent. He worked hard, he was feisty. “He didn’t give up,” says Santos, who molded that young player until he was “12 or 13 years old,” when agents and multinationals had already begun to keep an eye on him because his tennis was beyond normality.
That Carlitos, still to be done, was already making his way with different virtues. “Because he was the same as now, he already had that ability, that something different: he threw drop shots, made lobs, volleys, those angles… He had a lot of imagination, while the rest followed the same line. And a very important thing: being so young he learned to defend himself very well, because being smaller than the others, he had to do twice as much force and he developed that ability and instinct that he has now,” continues the coach, who describes a boy “plugged in, because winning so many games helps you not lose focus,” and who shared long periods of time with his father at the Real Sociedad Club de Campo Murcia, the geographical origin of his success.
“He didn’t remember the score!”
There he grew, enjoyed, absorbed and took shape the wonder that has reached the pinnacle and that today aims for its third major, after the conquests of the US Open (2022) and the All England Club (2023). A talent that already performed well in adversity, with nerve, vigorous and electric. “The worse things got, the better he responded and the harder it was for the rival. It has always been like this. The rest knew that if there was equality, the games were going to be long. Carlos always did semis and final”, he points out; “And he already had those disconnections, but it’s normal. It happens to all players, and they improve over time. Sometimes he even forgot the score! He played so calmly that he didn’t even know how he was going!
Then came the possibility of a trip to Paris, where both enjoyed a few happy and foreboding days, in a 100% tennis atmosphere. Santos says that they competed in an under-13 tournament—sponsored by a prestigious watch brand—in which they coincided with the Danish Holger Rune, now also among the strongest on the circuit, and that Alcaraz lost in the semifinals against the Chinese Xiaofei. Wang. “Although he was very young, that boy was already almost 1.80 meters tall. “He won in the final tiebreaker (4-1, 1-4 and 7-1),” says the coach, while recalling that Carlitos greatly enjoyed a ride in bateaux by the Seine and, above all, of the matches played on the removable court installed under the Eiffel Tower. Days of growth, prelude to growth spurt.
“It was a very beautiful moment. I met many foreign players, I met Holger (Rune), I had the experience of playing internationally and I saw a match that was wonderful for me,” the tennis player commented on Friday, after beating Jannik Sinner in the semifinal. It was his first visit to the Roland Garros facilities, where he would compete for the first time in 2019, as a junior, and where his father, Carlos, used to travel year after year, accompanied by his great-uncle Tomás. “They showed us all the club’s facilities, we watched a game at the Philippe Chatrier and we were also in the players’ dining room. Carlos has a very special memory,” says Santos.
There was also the occasional gastronomic anecdote: “When we arrived at the hotel, we read the menu and when it was time to order dessert, we asked for the cheese, thinking that they would serve us a cheesecake. But it turned out to be a huge board. Carlos ate only a couple of pieces, and I had to eat the rest…”
Together, he and Alcaraz also traveled to places such as the Caja Mágica, Nadal’s academy in Mallorca or Tarbes (France). And, at a certain point, Santos began to direct Pedro Cobacho, a close friend of the world number three and with whom he coincided for a year under the same tutelage. Then, of course, that brilliant Carlitos stood out. He flied. “Where he is most comfortable is on a tennis court,” adds the interlocutor. “And he is still the same as always, a very good kid. He has confidence in himself, yes, but he has never gone for a chop. The other way around”, he closes the conversation around an episode that leads to the starting point: Roland Garros. “He would leave school and run home to watch the games. I have always wanted to put my name on that list of Spaniards who have won it,” says the finalist. And now, 21 years old, he only needs (as if it were so easy) the last push.
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