The Dazzling New Star Who Has Totally Upended Men's Tennis

[marmar]

In August 2021, my wife and I took my parents to the U.S. Open, as we do every year. While we took our seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium, I apologized to them because it appeared we were going to see a series of dud matches. In particular, I was disappointed that Stefanos Tsitsipas, one of my favorite players, was playing some teenager from Spain ranked outside of the top 50, and was obviously going to devour this kid like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park going after Donald Gennaro. Like many of my tennis predictions, this turned out to be hilariously wrong. That kid was Carlos Alcaraz, and by the end of the first set, which he won 6–3, the crowd was on his side.* Tsitsipas won the second, and Alcaraz the third in a thrilling tiebreaker, and then suddenly everything appeared to fall apart as Tsitsipas dominated the fourth set, winning it 6–0. The writing was on the wall, the fat lady was singing, and the T-Rex was readying his knife and fork, but Alcaraz appeared not to care. Over the course of a gutsy fifth set, Alcaraz found his best tennis when it counted, and won the match in a stunning tiebreak, cracking winners, playing drop shot/passing shot combos, and flying around the court as if he hadn’t been playing for four hours.

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Carlos Alcaraz Garfia—Carlito to his friends—is the most exciting new player in men’s tennis since his countryman Rafael Nadal launched his rivalry against Roger Federer in 2004. Like Nadal, Alcaraz graduated to the big leagues at the Miami Masters. Unlike Nadal, he won the tournament, taking out quality opponents (Caspar Ruud, Hubert Hurkacz), a Grand Slam champion (Marin Cilic), and poor Stefanos Tsitsipas to hoist the trophy on April 3. This past week, in Madrid, Alcaraz did even better, becoming the only player ever to beat Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at the same clay court event, and totally dominating world No. 3 Alexander Zverev in the final for good measure. But even that is underselling what Alcaraz achieved this week. Not only did he beat the top three players in the world on consecutive days; Nadal and Djokovic are the greatest clay court players alive, and his victories over Djokovic and Zverev came after sustaining a bad fall and ankle injury against Nadal. .....................(more)

https://slate.com/culture/2022/05/carlos-alcaraz-tennis-phenom-future-champion-french-open.html