Hear
“The finals are not played, they are won,” dictated Alfredo Di Stéfano, Argentine glory of Real Madrid, five-time European champion. Carlos AlcarazCarlitos, still at 21 years old, incorporates the concept, recites it and puts it into practice, smiling, with a naturalness only reserved for the chosen ones. Three great finals played, three won; on a cement surface (US Open 2022), on grass (Wimbledon 2023) and now on clay, in Roland Garrosbeating the German Alexander Zverev (6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-1 and 6-2, in 4h19m).
Spanish like Rafael Nadal, assumes the succession with commitment and opportunism, when the king of the land is dropping the racket. He takes the concrete chance of relief, but feeds it with his own seasonings, with signature impacts, fusing the rush of modern tennis with the patience to reason under pressure.
“I have special feelings about this tournament. When school finished I ran home to turn on the TV and watch all the games. I have seen a lot; Rafa’s, of course. And now I want to put my name on that list of Spaniards who have won them,” described Alcaraz after unraveling a complex challenge in the semifinals, in the innovative classic with the Italian Jannik Sinner (number 1 since this Monday). From El Palmar, a town of 24,000 inhabitants in Murcia, he visited Roland Garros when he was twelve years old. He then played on a court set up under the Eiffel Tower. Today he already contemplates the City of Light from the top of the emblematic iron structure. In the first French Open final without the presence of Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer since 2004 (Gastón Gaudio vs. Guillermo Coria), Alcaraz and Zverev built a match with their hearts on their hands, without hiding fears, showing off qualities, but without avoiding failures and haste. On a fast and dry clay, a product of the weather conditions (a bright Sunday, with 21 degrees and windy), the ball hit with liveliness and controlling it was quite a challenge. “This looks like clue hard. Is incredible! “Incredible!” Carlitos complained.
In that context, Alcaraz was agile and creative, with strategic variants and imagination in the tension of the fray. Even at several moments he used high and deep shots with less pepper to reset the point and delay Zverev, an already unusual choice in a robotic tennis with very strong rackets. “You don’t think it’s annoying!” His coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, champion of the Musketeers Cup in 2003, shouted at him several times from the box. The thing is that at times Alcaraz got the better of anxiety and couldn’t hide the frustration. He drew attention, for example, to how he missed the third set, being 5-2. The worn-out physique (he was treated on a handful of occasions by the Argentine physiotherapist Alejandro Resnicoff) set off the alarm and led him to remember what happened a year ago, when he lost in the semifinals with Djokovic and, later, he confessed: “I felt cramps because of the nerves.” to play with Novak (…) I have to learn the lesson for next time.” This time he did not stop running: he showed voracity, perseverance and a competitive ability worthy of the greats.
Zverev, with flat hits, a powerful serve, one of the most notable backhands of the tour and solid coverage from the baseline (quick movements beyond his tall 1.98m), but somewhat emotionally unstable, stood up knowing his strengths and weaknesses. Which is it? Champion on the circuit for the first time in 2016, with his best ranking (No. 2) two seasons ago and with an intermediate age (27 years) between the veterans and the new figures, before the game he knew, deep down, that he was already There will not be so many chances of achieving a first Grand Slam, his account pending (he had lost the only definition he played at that level, at the 2020 United States Open, against Dominic Thiem, even though he was 2-0 in sets and with a break above). It is likely that this memory has disturbed him in passages of imprecision.
The player from Hamburg, who aspired to become the first German to win Roland Garros (Michael Stich was a finalist in 1996), had a sort of last chance to react in the match when in the fifth set, with almost four hours of play, He had four break points with Alcaraz serving 2-1, but the Spaniard escaped the siege, celebrated and came out stronger from there (3-1). What’s more, Carlitos broke the serve of Sasha In the seventh game (5-2), he served for the championship with new balls and closed his Parisian work with a cross drive.
“Is incredible. You are already a member of the Hall of Fame at such a young age,” Zverev acknowledged, during the award ceremony, at the Philippe-Chatrier court. Björn Borg, fifty years after his first title in Paris, gave the Cup to Alcaraz, a tennis player who amazes with his ability and dazzles with his charisma. The Spaniard has been breaking the maxim of those who say that, in today’s tennis with so much speed and explosion, there is no time to think. He always has some more time. He combines the delicacy of a classical music artist with the fierceness of a boxer. He is daring and, when things are not going so well on the court, he is clever at listening to the members of his team, especially Ferrero, the man who molds him and who was impressed from the first time he saw him, playing a (ex) Future at twelve years old, at his academy in Villena, Alicante.
Alcaraz continues to accumulate precocity records. In September 2022, by winning the US Open, he had already been the youngest (19 years old) to reach number 1 in the ranking. The coronation in Paris, in addition to allowing him to rise to number 2 (Djokovic will be 3rd), places the “Wonder Boy” as the youngest player (21 years and 35 days) to obtain Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces (Nadal he had achieved it at 22 years old, Federer at 27). In addition, the boy who activates the theory of “The three Cs” (Head, heart and balls), is one of the seven men who won their first three Grand Slam finals, after Federer (the Swiss won his seven first attempts), Borg, Jimmy Connors, Stefan Edberg, Guga Kuerten and Stan Wawrinka.
“The last few months we have had a pretty bad time with the injury (to the right forearm) and I didn’t feel well. The following weeks of the Madrid tournament were with many doubts, coming to Paris without training too much,” recalled Alcaraz, without ceasing to embrace the Musketeers Cup and after cutting Zverev’s streak of twelve consecutive wins (six in Paris and six to win the Masters 1000 in Rome). “This is something I dreamed of since I was little. It’s what I’ve worked for since day one. “It is a pride to put my name on this trophy,” said Alcaraz, the eighth Spaniard to win the Bois de Boulogne, a list that includes Nadal (14), Sergi Bruguera (2), Manolo Santana (2), Ferrero (1 ), Andrés Gimeno (1), Carlos Moya (1) and Albert Costa (1).
What a curiosity: to win his first Roland Garros trophy, Alcaraz defeated in the final the person who had eliminated Nadal in the first round, the best clay court player of all time and who will probably never step foot in the French Open again. , at least in activity. Carlitos trained on clay, but he grew up watching Federer: he has total tennis and is making the extraordinary something familiar. For fourteen years, the French public became accustomed to seeing a Spaniard lift the trophy at the Philippe-Chatrier. Now it happened again, but with another performer and only 21 years old. The successor.
In May 2022, during an interview with LA NACION, Alcaraz stated: “I have no limit right now. I want to continue climbing as far as I can go: if it can be to the sky, the better.” The warning was no joke…
