MADRID, 11 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz acknowledged that he would love to “play the Roland Garros final” against Rafa Nadal because “to be the best you have to beat the best”, and, in addition, he assures that his goal for the end of the year is “try to win a ‘Grand Slam'”.
“Rafa has not lost a Roland Garros final in all of history, but I would love to play one with Rafa and measure myself against him. I have always said that to be the best you have to beat the best, and Rafa Nadal at Roland Garros is the best, so I would love it”, declared Carlos Alcaraz in COPE’s ‘El Partidazo’.
Regarding a hypothetical final in Paris against the Balearic Islands, Alcaraz is clear that “he is the favourite”. “It’s not that he has to beat me yes or yes, but obviously Rafa is Rafael Nadal and he has 13 Roland Garros and 21 Grand Slams, he has never lost a Roland Garros final. If I say he is not the favourite, I don’t know what to say,” he said.
With a view to playing five-set matches on the Parisian red clay, Juan Carlos Ferrero’s pupil is “very well physically, at a very good level”, so “playing long matches” would be a point in his favor. “There are also many players who benefit from playing long games, who are physical and mental beasts. For this reason, I would try to take the physical aspect and the duration in my favor in long games,” said the tennis player.
The Murcian confirmed that his goal for the end of the year is to “try to win a ‘Grand Slam'”. “I’ve been going from goal to goal, first ‘top 15’, then ‘top 10’, to win a Masters 1000,” explained the current sixth-placed ATP ranking.
The one from El Palmar defined his week in Madrid as “better impossible”. “My birthday, Rafa’s day, Djokovic’s day, beating Zverev… It was all in a row, and the truth is that if you had put an emotion detector on me, I would have shattered it without a doubt,” he stressed. champion of the Mutua Madrid Open 2022.
Now he is resting and will not participate in the Masters 1000 in Rome, although he will watch matches to study his opponents for future competitions. Nor has he returned to training after the victory in Madrid because he is still working “with the physio to recover his ankle”, which is still inflamed after the mishap in the match against Rafa Nadal in Madrid, although in both the semifinal and the final he played “without pain”.