Duel of academies on the track: Ferrero’s against Nadal’s

Today’s final at the Masters 1,000 (7:00 p.m., Movistar Deportes) in Miami will also be played in Villena and Manacor. Carlos Alcaraz is based in the town of Alicante where the Equelite Academy, by Juan Carlos Ferrero, is established.. And Casper Ruud, at the Rafa Nadal Academy in the Balearic Islands. Ferrero, former number one and champion of Roland Garros 2003, He accompanied the then number one project Alexander Zverev on the circuit. He was for eight months, until the beginning of 2018, advising the German until the relationship broke down. So, she rejected other offers to focus on a bet that could come out heads or tails: to forge a boy who she saw “different things”. At the age of 14, he had already won his first ATP point at the Futures de Murcia and at 16 his first professional victory on the ATP circuit.by defeating Albert Ramos in Rio.

For his part, Ruud (23 years old and 8th in the world) he arrived in Manacor in 2018 when he was 143rd in the ATP. Now, he is eighth and already has seven titles in his record, the last one this year in Buenos Aires and six of them on clay, his favorite surface. As his idol was Nadal, he went as close to him to progress. His father Christian, who was top-40 in 1995, shares the technical direction with the former Majorcan player Pedro Clar.

“It’s inspiring. Very competitive, it doesn’t matter if it’s tennis or golf. And he has two personalities. One on the pitch where he is fierce, tough and plays with a lot of intensity and one offwhere he is a normal and nice guy,” the Norwegian tells of his mentor Nadal. Ruud and Alcaraz met last year in Marbella, with the Spaniard winning. “I want revenge. So he made me feel like I had no chance… But it’s crazy how well he plays.”warns the Viking of Manacor.