After having successively defeated Nadal and Djokovic, the young Spaniard won his second Masters 1000 in the season on Sunday, and asserts himself as one of the contenders for the title in Paris.
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With Carlos Alcaraz, time seems elastic. As a good compatriot of Salvador Dali, the young Spaniard gives the impression of laughing at the rigidity of time. With him, the watches are not soft, but the young man seems to have the power to accelerate them.
Sunday, May 8, the one who will be number 6 in the world on Monday only made a bite of the German Alexander Zverev in the Masters 1000 final in Madrid (6-3, 6-1, in an hour and two minutes ), after having successively defeated Rafael Nadal, Friday, and Novak Djokovic, Saturday – a first for the same player during a tournament on clay. Two weeks from Roland-Garros, he asserts himself as one of the favorites of the Parisian Grand Chelem tournament. At just 19 years old – he celebrated them on Thursday.
Because Carlos Alcaraz is no longer the “future” of world tennis. Double winner of the Madrid tournament but helpless in front of the Spanish tornado on Sunday, the world number 3 is not mistaken. “Today, you are the best player in the world,” said Zverev after his defeat. And he too seems to be taken by the way of twisting the time of the kid of Murcia. “Even if you are only five years old [sic], you boot our buttocks to all, and it’s good for tennis to see a big star emerge like you. You will win lots of Grand Slam tournaments, and Being the world number 1. “The day before,” Sasha “(his nickname) predicted a brilliant future to the one who, more and more, assumes the heavy label of” New Nadal “. “[Here, in Madrid], it was Rafa’s short for fifteen years, it will be that of Alcaraz for the next fifteen years.”
If last year, his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero – winner of Roland -Garros in 2003 – assured that his protégé was “not in a hurry” and spoke of “season to grow”, Alcaraz took Thickness this season, and not only at the shoulders and arms. Winner of two Masters 1000 – The highest tournaments of the circuit behind those of the Grand Slam – this season (in Miami and Madrid), the young Spaniard has an appetite for Ogre. And leaves only crumbs on the way: he won the five finals he played on the professional circuit.
“I feel able to compete with the best”
“For someone his age, playing so mature and courageous is impressive,” said Novak Djokovic after his defeat in the semi-finals. The world’s number 1 Serbian in the twenty Grand Slam titles saw others, but he is full of praise on his young opponent.
Two weeks before the start of Roland-Garros, Carlos Alcaraz is no longer hidden. “I feel able to compete with the best players in the world, such as Nadal or Djokovic, in all tournaments and on all surfaces,” said the player on Saturday. If his experience during the Grand Chelem tournaments, and their format at the best of the five sets, is still tender – he did his debut Porte d’Auteuil than in 2021 -, Alcaraz “feels ready”.
In Madrid, the protégé of Juan Carlos Ferrero said that he came to attend the tournament in the Spanish capital “kid, when [he] has [t] 6 or 7 years”. The Masters 1000 is now on your hunting board, that he does not plan to close as soon as possible.
Barely installed at the top of global tennis, and still having to confirm in Grand Slam, the “Next Gen” embodied by Alexander Zverev or the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas is already in the process of being overwhelmed by a more tough kid that she . “If I think I have a limit? I don’t think so,” smiled Carlos Alcaraz.