The new king of centre court. The best of Roger, Rafa and Novak with a Spanish bull mentality. A complete player at 20.
These are just some of the phrases being used to describe Carlos Alcaraz, tennis’ “unbelievable” new golden boy who just fought his way into the history books to become Wimbledon’s new champion — the first to break the tournament’s Djokovic-Nadal-Federer-Murray cycle since 2002 and one of its youngest ever male winners (Boris Becker still has the record, winning the men’s singles title in 1985 at just 17).
The 20-year-old’s wonderfully nail-biting victory over seven-time trophy-holder Novak Djokovic certainly felt like a story straight out of a sporting fairytale. Just a few weeks ago, many of us had never even heard of Carlos Alcaraz, the man tennis insiders were quietly tipping to be the one to dethrone the Championships’ previous Serbian winner.
Alcaraz’ rise to poster boy-status was certainly a quick one. Two years ago, he had only just broken into the top 100 players and had never reached an ATP tour final. Fast forward just 24 months and rather a lot has changed: now, the smiley, bucket hat-wearing Gen-Zer — ‘Carlitos’ to his friends and ‘Charlie’ when talking about himself — is World No.1 (the youngest ever) and has racked up an astonishing 12 titles on the ATP tour, including a four-set US Open triumph last year that saw him becoming the seventh youngest player in history to win a Grand Slam.
In the last month alone, he has lifted the trophy at both Queen’s and now Wimbledon, despite going into the SW19 tournament having only having played 11 matches on grass in his entire career. Did yesterday’s victory over Djokovic — 16 years his senior — signal an end to tennis’ Big Three golden era and a changing of the guard?
Commentators certainly think so. Even Djokovic himself has hinted at it, calling his babyfaced rival a “complete player” with a mental resilience and maturity far beyond his years. “I think people have been talking in the past 12 months or so about [Alcaraz’s] game consisting of certain elements from Roger, Rafa, and myself,” he told reporters at a press conference after yesterday’s showdown. “I would agree with that. I think he’s got basically best of all three worlds... I haven’t played a player like him ever, to be honest.”
From his humble beginnings to his new fashion icon status, here’s everything you need to know.
Humble beginnings and some unlikely helpers
Alcaraz might be the first in his family to reach the upper echelons of the world tennis rankings, but it could well have been his father Carlos Alcaraz Snr or grandfather Carlos Alcaraz Snr Snr who found themselves taking to Centre Court before him, had they had the same stroke of luck as their 20-year-old son and grandson.
Both men were talented tennis players with buckets of promise, but sadly lacked the funding to make it into the top of what is a famously expensive sport. Alcaraz started life this way too: born and raised alongside his three brothers, Álvaro, Jaime and Sergio in Murcia, on Spain’s Iberian Peninsula, he first picked up a tennis racket at just four years old and supposedly used to cry whenever he was told to stop playing and go home for dinner.
His father, Carlos Alcaraz Senior, had once been in Spain’s tennis top 40 but opted to run the tennis academy that his own father had set up when he failed to progress due to a lack of funding.
A young Alcaraz had a poster of Roger Federer on his wall and was coached by his father (his father was a tennis coach and administrator at his local club, El Palmar; his mother was raising Alcaraz and his three brothers, who are all passionate about tennis), and while his talent was never in doubt, the family struggled to find the money to fund what is often an incredibly expensive career.
Help soon came from the unlikeliest of places. Alfonso Lopes Rueda, the tennis-loving president of local cake and yoghurt company Postres Reina, took an interest in the young star and helped fund him through his early tournaments. In exchange, Alcaraz sported the company’s logo on the shirts he has wore during his matches from the age of 10.
The company’s support sustained Alcaraz through his early teens, allowing him to access the best coaching in his region and travel to the most competitive tournaments.
Alcaraz was later signed to international sports management group IMG at the age of 11, and from the age of 13 he signed a racket deal with Babolat. But the real magic happened in 2018, when he began working with Juan Carlos Ferrero. At the time, the former Spanish No.1 had been working with Alexander Zverev, but the two parted ways and Ferrero instead took on the project of coaching Alcaraz.
Ferrero retired in 2012, but he has widely been considered a crucial player in Alcaraz’ success, as both a coach and a mentor. “Juan Carlos [is a] very important person for me,” Alcaraz said last year.
“On the professional side, on the personal side... [he’s] helped me a lot. When we are together, we will talk about everything in life, everything in our sport and about football, as well. Juan Carlos, I consider him a coach and a friend as well. So I can talk to him about everything in [my] personal life, too.”
Perhaps it was this mentorship that aided the young player’s attitude as well as his sporting prowess. As a child, Alcaraz was known for his tempestuous personality, throwing his rackets in anger, bursting into tears and refusing to leave the court after losses. Today he is better known for his smile, even when he is losing — an outlook change he also partially credits to his psychologist, Isabel Balaguer.
“When I was younger, I was a totally different person,” he said earlier this year. “Probably I didn’t enjoy it as I’m enjoying right now. I was always mad, throwing the racket, complaining a lot. It was different. I started to calm myself, control my emotions. I started to enjoy playing tennis, enjoy a lot on the court.”
Today, Alcaraz’ team consists of PTs, therapists, doctors and trainers, but he remains close to the El Palmar community he grew up in, still visiting at weekends and hanging out with the same friends he did as a child, sitting with them in the park or playing board games like chess — a keen hobby of his outside tennis.
Carlos Alcaraz falls to the floor as he beats Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon.
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) July 16, 2023
He ran up to his box to hug his team.
This stadium is overflowing with love & adoration for Carlitos Alcaraz. 🥹 pic.twitter.com/h82Mviha3y
“I love chess,” he told Vogue earlier this year. “Having to concentrate, to play against someone else, strategy—having to think ahead. I think all of that is very similar to the tennis court. You have to intuit where the other player is going to send the ball, you have to move ahead of time, and try to do something that will make him uncomfortable. So I play it a lot.”
Off-court, the tennis No. 1 is also a keen philanthropist (he has a charity to help people with Downs Syndrome and auctioned his US Open-winning trainers to raise money for local Downs charity Assido) and is a passionate fan of fashion and Real Madrid. Given his beginnings in the sport, he probably considers cake pretty highly on that list of passions, too.
Power, athleticism and ‘lightning in a bottle’
There was one question on everyone’s lips when Alcaraz began to dominate the men’s game: is he the next Rafael Nadal?
While the comparison is understandable — both grew up playing on the red clay of Spain, are incredibly athletic and are immensely likeable — Alcaraz’s game is better described as an alchemical mixture of all the characteristics that have made the Big Three shine.
While he primarily employs an aggressive big-hitting baseline style of play, with an emphasis on winners from his forehand, he is also known for his deft use of the drop shot. And, even though clay may be his bread and butter, his wins at the US Open and Queen’s have demonstrated he is a fearless all-surface player.
“He hits the ball harder and with more topspin than even Nadal,” Andrew Castle former British number one said to the Telegraph. “In real life it takes your breath away. When he plays – and when you see those muscles live – there is electricity in the air. The sense of occasion he brings is off-the-chart brilliant.”
He also has the rare combination of relative height (he’s six foot tall) and athleticism, with mesmerisingly acrobatic footwork, allowing him to attack with precision at even the most crucial moments. “It is what makes Carlos special,” Ferrero told the New York Times last year. “Many players like to compete but not so many look forward to playing the biggest points. Carlos does, and I think that is a very good sign for the future.”
Federer’s ex-coach Paul Annaconne describes Alcaraz’s game as “electric, like lightning in a bottle” and once called him the most complete teenager he had seen. Djokovic echoed these comments last night.
“He’s got this mental resilience and really maturity for someone who is 20 years old,” he told reporters at a press conference yesterday. “It’s quite impressive. He’s got this Spanish bull mentality of competitiveness and fighting spirit and incredible defence that we’ve seen with Rafa over the years. And I think he’s got some nice sliding backhands that he’s got some similarities with my backhands. The two-handed backhands, defence, being able to adapt. I think that has been my personal strength for many years. He has it, too.”
Sneakers, Louis Vuitton and *that* Wimbledon bucket hat
Star quality. Youthful charm. That boyish grin. It’s no wonder Alcaraz has been quick to catch the eye of the fashion world. Earlier this month — less than seven days after securing his victory at Queen’s — he chalked up a win of a slightly different nature, being named Louis Vuitton’s latest ambassador, with the French fashion house saying it was “delighted to welcome Carlos on this collaborative adventure ahead.”
Alcaraz has spoken in the past about his interest in fashion, particularly baggy jeans and vintage Nike sneakers (he is sponsored by Nike and became the face of Calvin Klein’s underwear campaign earlier this year).
He has spoken of his admiration for how the late Virgil Abloh mixed sportswear with luxury and for Pharrell Williams’ first collection at Louis Vuitton. After discussing the possibility of branching out into the sartorial realm with one of his agents, the conversation with Louis Vuitton developed quickly.
“For me, Louis Vuitton is really a brand that I have always looked to and when the opportunity to work with the team arose, it instantly felt like a perfect partnership,” Alcaraz told Vogue. “I was really invested from the start.
“I really want to know more about it and be more into fashion... I think it’s a very interesting world and it excites me.”
He has also been noticed by none other than Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, herself an avid tennis player. “Carlos is very charming and very shy — both qualities that belie his rather monumental presence on the tennis court, where he is very fast and very powerful and quite charismatic,” she told the Telegraph this week.
“Off the court, I know he’s been quietly paying attention to fashion, and I think we’re all excited to see what he and Louis Vuitton might do together — it’s a great match!” she added.
While Alcaraz has said that his personal style is still evolving, he delighted audiences at SW19 with his fashion this month, rocking a now-infamous white bucket hat for media rounds at the All England Club. The official Instagram of the Championships even shared a picture of him sporting the headgear, writing “We need to talk about @carlitosalcarazz’s bucket hat”. Yes Wimbledon, yes we do.
The grass newbie who won Wimbledon — what’s next?
“The kid who beat the GOAT [Greatest Of All Time]” was among the smartest headlines doing the rounds after Alcaraz’ ending of Djokovic’s decade of Wimbledon dominance last night.
It’s a description that not only speaks to the Spaniard’s age, but his newness to the grass surface Wimbledon is so renowned for. Despite being the favourite going into this year’s grand slam, Alcaraz had only played 11 matches on grass in his entire career going into this year’s tournament. “I thought I would have trouble with you on clay and hard court but not on grass,” Djokovic admitted last night.
Alcaraz, however, was far from deterred by his own infancy on the surface. “Now I’m thinking that myself could be a great player on grass,” he said after getting to the fourth round at SW19 last year. “I got a lot of experience [this year] playing on grass at Wimbledon... But I would say I’m going to be a great player here on grass.”
His victory on the grass at Queen’s and now Wimbledon was testament to that. He has long called Wimbledon “the most beautiful tournament on the tour” and spoken of his determination to lift its trophy and break Djokovic’s long-time aura of invincbility, so last night’s win was historic in more ways than one.
He called the five-set victory the “best moment” of his life and said he was “falling in love with grass” after his second win on the surface — so what’s next?
Facing Djokovic again across the pond again in September, probably, or if last year’s US Open win is anything to go by. Djokovic beat the Spaniard in the semi-final of the French Open just last month, so Djokovic clearly still presents the most obvious barrier to Alcaraz’ success.
Djokovic might have 23 grand slams under his belt, but what Alcaraz does have over the Serb is age on his side. “I am a totally different player than the French Open,” he said last night, despite the French Open being just weeks ago. “I have grown up a lot since that moment. I learned a lot from that moment.”
If that learning curve continues, we could be seeing rather a lot more of that signature bucket hat. The question now is: will he be the one taking on the next generation in the Wimbledon final in 16 years?
