Carlos Alcaraz, 17-year-old tennis player from Murcia, has completed a 2020 that has placed him in 138th place in the ranking ATP and, facing the next, he raises his claims. “I aspire to continue progressing and to reach the top 50”, he affirms in an interview with EFE, in which he does not hide his winning character. “Many tennis players play not to lose the key points and I think you have to be brave and play them to win,” he declares.
Alcaraz, the only minor who appears among the 550 first classified in the world, He has closed the year after his participation in the ATP Challenger in Marbella and rests at home, with his family, for this Monday to return to the JC Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy, where he trains daily. After a season in which has won three ATP Challenger tournaments -Trieste, Barcelona and Alicante-, two ITF At the Rafa Nadal academy and the Mapfre Valor League of the Royal Spanish Tennis Federation, he takes stock and talks about what he expects for the future in the short term.
“I have taken the opportunity to be at home, with my family, and have seen friends, which is always appreciated, but with the restrictions due to the pandemic obviously it is not that we have been able to do many things, although I have disconnected,” he says in the Real Sociedad Club de Campo, in whose courts he gave his first rackets. “It is a place that brings back great memories,” he says.
Alcaraz, who in addition to tennis has started playing golf and also declares himself a soccer fan and Real Madrid fan, acknowledges that this 2020 “has been a great year, which has made me see that I am closer to the goals than I thought and I would give it a grade of 8 “. “The best have been the results I have been able to obtain and the great work done, also in quarantine, and worst not having been able to play for five months in a row. After what is done I really want to start 2021 “, he adds.
In recent months Alcaraz's physical transformation stands out as a result of the task he has carried out while he was not competing. “Given that we were several weeks without playing, we spent many hours in the gym to keep up with the rhythm of the games when he did it again,” he says. Alcaraz is aware that it has much to improve: “Right now I would say that the serve is what I have to polish the most and I have to work hard, Although for a long time I have suffered discomfort in the abdomen and when I overload that area, something that is done by taking out, bothers me. However, I have to influence that. “
Mentality, despite his youth, is one of his strengths And he shows it by being able to win many games that reach the limit. In that sense, sudden death usually falls on his side and he explains why. “Those points come at a difficult time and many tennis players play not to lose when I think you have to be brave and play them to win. I prefer to go for them and thanks to that ability I get quite a few ahead,” he says.
The next campaign will begin Alcaraz with the Australian tour and concrete objectives. “I would like to enter the final table of Roland Garros, for which I would have to be a top 100, and finish the year in the top 50. I see myself capable of doing great things,” said a boy who has aroused great expectations, superior to what he could hope for. “It is something that I did not expect, but neither have these good results in 2020. The media attention is a consequence of what you do on the track, but It is not that they ask me for so many autographs, although I have signed some or others and I have taken a few photos this year “, relates Alcaraz, who admits to being in love with Wimbledon and shows his “dream” of representing Spain in the Davis Cup, a tournament of which he was champion in the junior category in 2018.
“I hope to be there one day and it would be a dream come true, although Spain, luckily, has many players in the top 100 and it is not easy to enter that list,” says this still adolescent who, from the advice received, remains with one, that “I isolate myself from social networks and continue my path paying attention to those who make up my team because flattery does not always feel good.”