The Murcian Carlos Alcaraz Garfia, in the first full year that he faces as a professional tennis player, has won more games than four players installed in the top 10 of the ATP rankings -Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem, Roger Federer and Denis Shapovalov- and he is the Spaniard with the most wins on the ATP Tour circuit, having achieved 31 in the 45 games that he has played distributed among the 16 tournaments he has faced since January.
Alcaraz, 18 years old -He was born on May 5, 2003 in El Palmar- and number 55 in the world, he maintains a great progression, which he hopes to continue showing in the continuity of his American tour.
The Juan Carlos Ferrero's pupil, eliminated this Tuesday at the ATP Master 1,000 in Cincinnati after losing 3-6 and 6-7 (6) against Italian Lorenzo Sonego after having passed the previous phase of this tournament with victories against the Brazilian Thiago Monteiro and the Belarusian Ilya Ivashka, He plans to participate next week in the ATP 250 at the Winston-Salem Open, prior to the United States Open, in which he will also take part and which will take place from August 30 to September 12 at Flushing Meadows, within the New York district of Queens.
To date, Alcaraz has played 16 tournaments in 2021 with 45 matches between all of them, of which he won 31 and lost 14, 68.8% of wins, which is a very high percentage for a boy of his age and taking into account that he has achieved it in the three Grand Slam tournaments already held -Australia, Roland Garros and Wimbledon-, another three Master 1,000 -Miami, Madrid and Cincinnati-, two Master 500 -Acapulco and Barcelona-, six Master 250 – Melbourne 1, Montpellier, Marbella, Estoril, Umag and Kitzbühel-, plus the ATP Challenger of Gran Canaria 2 and Oeiras 3.
Precisely in this last championship, held in Portugal; and in Umag, in Croatia, Alcaraz won the trophy since he returned to the competition after the six-month break that in 2020 motivated the coronavirus pandemic has been raising the level of his tennis and the quality of his triumphs. That background of 31-14 that “La Roca” presents in 2021 admits comparisons with the greats of world tennis.
Serbian Novak Djokovic, number 1 in the ATP, has won 38 games and lost five this year; Russian Daniil Medvedev, number 2, has achieved 40 wins and has conceded nine defeats; Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, number 3, has obtained 48 wins and has suffered 13 defeats.
Behind in the ranking is the Spanish Rafael Nadal, number 4, who this year has only won 24 games and has lost five and further down are the German Alexander Zverev (36-11), the Austrian Thiem (9-9), the Russian Andrey Rublev (40-13), Italian Matteo Berrettini (33-8), Swiss Federer (9-4) and Canadian Shapovalov (22-17).
As for the Spanish The one who comes closest to Alcaraz in terms of the victories achieved this year is Pablo Carreño, current twelfth player in the world, with 30 wins and 12 losses.