www.theguardian.com Open in urlscan Pro
2a04:4e42:600::367  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

https://www.google.co.uk/search

<form action="https://www.google.co.uk/search" class="dcr-g8v7m4"><label for="src-component-1636464" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-19ilr9m">Search input </div>
  </label><input type="text" id="src-component-1636464" aria-required="true" aria-invalid="false" aria-describedby="" required="" name="q" placeholder="Search" data-link-name="nav2 : search" tabindex="-1" class="selectableMenuItem dcr-12e1qm"><label
    class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-19ilr9m">google-search </div>
    <div class="dcr-190ztmi"><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
        <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd"
          d="M9.273 2c4.023 0 7.25 3.295 7.25 7.273a7.226 7.226 0 0 1-7.25 7.25C5.25 16.523 2 13.296 2 9.273 2 5.295 5.25 2 9.273 2Zm0 1.84A5.403 5.403 0 0 0 3.84 9.274c0 3 2.409 5.454 5.432 5.454 3 0 5.454-2.454 5.454-5.454 0-3.023-2.454-5.432-5.454-5.432Zm7.295 10.887L22 20.16 20.16 22l-5.433-5.432v-.932l.91-.909h.931Z">
        </path>
      </svg><span class="dcr-1p0hins">Search</span></div>
  </label><button type="submit" aria-live="polite" aria-label="Search with Google" data-link-name="nav2 : search : submit" tabindex="-1" class="dcr-a7qyd9">
    <div class="src-button-space"></div><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
      <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M1 12.956h18.274l-7.167 8.575.932.932L23 12.478v-.956l-9.96-9.985-.932.932 7.166 8.575H1v1.912Z"></path>
    </svg>
  </button><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="www.theguardian.com"></form>

Text Content

Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Support us

 * News
 * Opinion
 * Sport
 * Culture
 * Lifestyle

ShowMoreShow More
 * News
   * View all News
   * World news
   * UK news
   * Climate crisis
   * Environment
   * Science
   * Global development
   * Football
   * Tech
   * Business
   * Obituaries
   
 * Opinion
   * View all Opinion
   * The Guardian view
   * Columnists
   * Cartoons
   * Opinion videos
   * Letters
   
 * Sport
   * View all Sport
   * Football
   * Cricket
   * Rugby union
   * Tennis
   * Cycling
   * F1
   * Golf
   * US sports
   
 * Culture
   * View all Culture
   * Books
   * Music
   * TV & radio
   * Art & design
   * Film
   * Games
   * Classical
   * Stage
   
 * Lifestyle
   * View all Lifestyle
   * Fashion
   * Food
   * Recipes
   * Love & sex
   * Health & fitness
   * Home & garden
   * Women
   * Men
   * Family
   * Travel
   * Money
 * Search input
   google-search
   Search
   
   
    * Support us
    * Print subscriptions

   International edition
   * UK edition
   * US edition
   * Australia edition
   
 * * Search jobs
   * Holidays
   * Digital Archive
   * Guardian Puzzles app
   * Guardian Licensing
   * The Guardian app
   * Video
   * Podcasts
   * Pictures
   * Newsletters
   * Today's paper
   * Inside the Guardian
   * The Observer
   * Guardian Weekly
   * Crosswords
   * Wordiply
   * Corrections
   * Facebook
   * Twitter
 * * Search jobs
   * Holidays
   * Digital Archive
   * Guardian Puzzles app
   * Guardian Licensing

Back to homepage
The mural of Carlos Alcaraz in his hometown of El Palmar, and and him with his
former coach Kiko Navarro. Composite: Getty Images



‘THIS BOY WAS BORN TO BE NO 1’: THE MAKING OF CARLOS ALCARAZ

The mural of Carlos Alcaraz in his hometown of El Palmar, and and him with his
former coach Kiko Navarro. Composite: Getty Images




Those who watched his early years in a Murcian village reveal how the world No 1
emerged from the grounds of Tiro de Pichón

by Tumaini Carayol in Murcia

Fri 26 May 2023 19.00 BSTLast modified on Sat 27 May 2023 09.56 BST
 * 
 * 
 * 



In the south-eastern corner of El Palmar, a village in south-eastern Spain, the
Real Sociedad Club de Campo sits in the mountains overlooking the Murcia
region’s eponymous capital city. Exactly 100 years ago, the club was founded
solely as a hunters’ society, where those of privileged backgrounds would
convene to shoot pigeons out of the sky. Its evolution into a handsome private
tennis club has unexpectedly positioned it as the place where many people first
glimpsed the player who could be the future of the men’s game.

It was on the grounds of Tiro de Pichón (Pigeon Strike), as the club is still
colloquially known as today, where many people saw Carlos Alcaraz and left with
the belief that they had seen something special.



“He began to play with his dad, and one day [his father] asked me to watch him.
This kid, at four, five years old, was spectacular,” says Kiko Navarro, who was
coached there by Alcaraz’s father, Carlos Sr, in his youth before eventually
becoming one of Alcaraz Jr’s early coaches.

Holger Rune: ‘I think if everybody was the same, it would be a bit boring’
Read more

“I knew from very young that he was incredible,” Navarro says. “I’m not going to
say that I was thinking he was going to be world No 1 but I knew that I had a
really good and different player on my hands.”

Alfredo Sarria is a close friend and longtime business partner of Carlos Sr,
whom he likens to a brother, and the pair run the Carlos Alcaraz Academy
together at Tiro de Pichón. After first seeing a four-year-old Alcaraz in action
while playing padel with his brother, Álvaro, Sarria was also enthused by his
potential.

“When he was young you saw that he was very good, that he was going to be a
champion,” Sarria says. “But hey, you say it with a ‘small mouth’ – you say it
without completely believing everything you say.”

Alcaraz’s roots are entrenched in the club, which has 13 tennis courts and four
padel courts as well as a swimming pool, a gym, a basketball court and a
football pitch. His grandfather, also Carlos, learned how to play tennis there
and he eventually became a prominent member, helping to mould it into the modern
sporting club it is today.


A young Carlos Alcaraz and his former coach Kiko Navarro. Photograph: Courtesy
of Kiko Navarro

His passion for tennis was passed down to Alcaraz’s father, who took the dream
forward by competing at a high level within Spain. Still, he did not have the
funds to pursue a serious professional career. He eventually became a tennis
coach and administrator in tennis and padel.

It took three generations in the Alcaraz lineage for a true breakthrough but the
wait has been worthwhile. Alcaraz has arrived at the French Open, which starts
on Sunday, as the world No 1 and one of the tournament favourites after a
historic 2022 that included him becoming a grand slam champion at the US Open
and the ATP’s first ever teenage No 1 at 19.

Around the club, various members have vivid memories of witnessing a passionate
young Carlitos, as he is widely known, in his earliest days. Sarria recalls a
time when he arrived at the club for a meeting with Alcaraz’s father: “I went to
look for Carlos Sr and there I find Carlitos watching a game between
grandparents by the fence on court three,” he says, laughing. “He knew how they
were faring, he told them the mistakes they were making: ‘You have to serve
here.’ He has a passion for tennis.”

At a time when modern tennis has become dominated by attritional rallies from
the baseline, one of the defining aspects of Alcaraz’s success is the way he has
achieved it. He burst into the sport playing dynamic, creative all-court tennis,
demolishing forehands, smothering opponents with an unending stream of drop
shots and constantly looking to flit forward to the net.

“Just as you see him hit 20 drop shots per match today, he hit them at 13 years
old,” says David Ayuela, who captained the Spanish Junior Davis Cup team during
Alcaraz’s time in it. “What’s more, when he was 13, I remember that there were
people who said: ‘Oof, this boy, a lot of drop shots. So many drop shots. We’ll
see when he grows up and becomes a professional.’ This is exactly the same game
[he plays now].”

> All that he trained, he also did in matches. For him it was natural, even aged
> eight, to spend half a match at the net

Alfredo Sarria

The variety in Alcaraz’s game is courtesy of his very first coach, his father,
who taught him sound technique on each shot. But Sarria notes that all players
at the academy are taught in the same way. The difference between Alcaraz and
many of his peers was his willingness to implement them in matches, which
allowed him to quickly become comfortable with his arsenal of shots.

“Carlos has always had the virtue from the beginning that all that he trained,
he also did it in matches,” says Sarria. “So for him it was natural, even at
eight years old, to spend half a match at the net. No eight-year-old spends half
a match approaching the net because they know they’re going to get lobbed and
passed.”

His mastery of variety and touch is also directly related to his precocity.
Alcaraz’s uncle, Tomás, often tells the story of when he took him to his first
tournament at five years old. Alcaraz competed against an opponent two to three
years his elder, and much taller. They played with adult balls rather than the
depressurised balls normally reserved for players his age.

Each time the ball bounced, it would fly over Alcaraz’s head. After losing the
first set easily, at five he still had the wherewithal to adapt: “Instead of
letting it bounce, he moved into the forecourt and volleyed every shot, hitting
the ball without letting it bounce,” says Sarria. “And he almost won the match
because he had the skill [and] he had the resources to say: ‘Well, I can’t win
like this, I’m going to win this other way.’”


Carlos Alcaraz won the US Open last year – only his second participation in the
tournament. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since he emerged on the ATP Tour, Alcaraz has constantly stressed the necessity
of competing with a smile on his face. When a smile does not easily come to him
in the heat of battle, even when he is losing, it is an indication of
overwhelming nerves. His on-court demeanour is unusual for a player who competes
so fiercely.

This was not always the case. As a child, Alcaraz’s temper was infamous. He
threw rackets in anger, he burst into tears and refused to leave the court after
losses. “The truth is that Carlos had a strong personality, a big temper,” says
Navarro. “He did not like to lose at all. When we were travelling around the
world and he lost a match, you had to leave him for a while as he would cry. He
was a bad loser.”

In Rome earlier this month, Alcaraz reminisced on his old ways with a smile:
“When I was younger, I was a totally different person,” he said, laughing.
“Probably I didn’t enjoy it as I’m enjoying right now. I was always mad,
throwing the racket, complaining a lot. It was different. I started to calm
myself, control my emotions. I started to enjoy playing tennis, enjoy a lot on
the court.”

A few days into his campaign in Rome, Alcaraz suffered one of his worst ever
losses, losing to the world No 135, Fabian Marozsan. It was almost as striking
to see him eagerly answering questions in his press conference with a smile on
his face and heaping praise on his Hungarian opponent. Even when he would rage
after defeats as a child, he did not allow his frustration to linger for too
long.

“There have been times when he stayed on the court and he didn’t want to get off
because he didn’t want to lose,” says Sarria. “But it is also true that after 10
minutes, he had forgotten. Always. He was very pissed off, he put on a show, but
after 10 minutes he had a smile on his face and had forgotten about the game.”

While many aspects of the 20-year-old’s game remain technically identical to
when he was younger, there have been notable changes, including his serve and
backhand. There was enough concern about the progress of Alcaraz’s backhand that
there were even discussions within his camp about switching to a single-handed
backhand.

Despite Alcaraz striking the single-hander well, Navarro and the rest of his
team were ultimately against the change. Such episodes were reflective of his
adaptability and the ease with which he learned new skills.

skip past newsletter promotion

Sign up to The Recap


Free weekly newsletter

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the
weekend’s action


Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and
content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy.
We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and
Terms of Service apply.

after newsletter promotion

“There was an issue with the serve; if you look at old video, he used to serve
with his feet apart. It was very easy to change it. If you say: ‘Carlitos, hit
with one hand,’ he will hit with one hand. This boy was born to be a tennis
player, to be No 1,” says Navarro.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Junior Davis Cup brings together the best players aged 16 and under in the
international team competition. In 2018, the tournament was held in Budapest,
with Spain and France meeting in the final.

After France took the first singles rubber, Alcaraz, a year younger than his
competition, stepped up against Harold Mayot, a future junior No 1, requiring a
win to keep their chances alive. Instead, he was overcome by nerves and he could
not play freely. Alcaraz trailed 6-4, 5-3 and 30-40 as the match appeared to be
slipping away.

“It was match point and gold medal point for France,” says Ayuela. “But Carlos
Alcaraz saved it, and incredibly, he won the match.”

He returned shortly afterwards to win the decisive doubles rubber alongside his
good friend Pablo Llamas. For those present, it was another of those striking
indicators of his enormous potential.

After the early days of building his game and committing to the prospect of
achieving something in the sport, one of the decisive moments of Alcaraz’s
career occurred as his family tried to plan his first trip abroad for a world
championship under-10s competition in Pula, Croatia.

The family, which includes his mother, Virginia, and three brothers, Álvaro,
Jaime and Sergio, did not have the financial resources to fund an expensive
tennis career. As they tried to seek out sponsors, Navarro decided to ask for
financial help from a good friend who worked at Postres Reina, a local
confectionery company in Murcia. He agreed to fund the trip.


An image of Carlos Alcaraz adorns another wall in Murcia. Photograph: Tumaini
Carayol

“It ended up being expensive because we were four people – Carlitos’s uncle, the
son of the sponsor, Carlitos and I,” says Navarro, laughing. “In the end, he
reached the final against another Spaniard, Daniel Rincón. It was a really nice
foundation, Carlos remembers it well. It was a really nice trip in Croatia.”

After the first successful trip, Postres Reina agreed to fund his subsequent
trips as he began to travel around Spain and Europe for competitions. The
company played an essential role in Alcaraz’s career and remains his sponsor
today.

“When you have a large family or you have four children, you don’t want anyone
to lack,” says Sarria. “You can’t invest everything in one and not the others.
So Reina helped a lot and that without a doubt is one of the legs of the table
for Carlos to get to where he is.”

As a person who cherishes closeness with his friends and family, even his
success and progress were not always easy to swallow. Eventually, Alcaraz became
too good for the players he had grown up playing with. A particularly difficult
period came when he had to stop playing with his friend and lifelong training
partner, Pedro Cobacho.

Sarria says: “There have been moments in which Carlos said: ‘Why isn’t this kid
going to train with me any more?’ Well, he doesn’t have your level. ‘But he’s my
friend. I’m not going to practise if I’m training without my friend.’ But he
can’t track down your shots.”

The Alcaraz family receives a lot of credit from their community for their role
in nurturing the player and ensuring that he always felt the love and affection
around him. “Tennis is an individual sport, no?” says Sarria. “But Carlos Sr has
always tried to make it look more like a team sport, in the sense of that
support. In the end, the sorrows are less sorrowful and the joys are shared.”

That feeling of community was particularly tested when Alcaraz made another
important decision as he moved to Villena, just over an hour away by car, to
train at Juan Carlos Ferrero’s Equelite Sport Academy. In time Ferrero, a former
world No 1 and the 2003 French Open champion, took over as his coach, using his
knowledge of the professional game to help guide Alcaraz to the top.

Alcaraz initially moved to Villena with Navarro and they spent two years living
together until their coaching partnership came to an end. Even though he
returned home on the weekends, it wasn’t an easy adjustment for Alcaraz, who
missed his friends and family. “It’s difficult to take Carlitos out of Murcia,”
Navarro says.


A fan holds up a sign for Carlos Alcaraz at Indian Wells in March. Photograph:
Mark J Terrill/AP

Even now, Alcaraz returns home often. Just before he sat down to talk, Sarria
received a message from Alcaraz’s team asking him to book a court for the world
No 1 at the club as he returned for a couple of days before heading to Roland
Garros.

The club and academy are booming, partly due to the global growth in tennis
participation since the early days of the pandemic, the sleek facilities and the
crisp mountain air, but also because new members of the academy have been
attracted by the hope of replicating Alcaraz’s success. In the clubhouse, as his
kids played on the football pitch outside, a German father of tennis-playing
children keenly explained that he was in the process of permanently relocating
his family from the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca to El Palmar.

The town has also seen some visual changes. As you enter the village from the
motorway that connects it with the city of Murcia, the very first image upon
entering El Palmar is an enormous mural of Alcaraz striking a backhand. It is a
permanent reminder of the talented, hard-working village kid who has not
forgotten the warm, tight-knit community that shaped him.

Topics
 * Carlos Alcaraz
 * French Open 2023
 * French Open
 * Tennis
 * features

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Reuse this content





MOST VIEWED


MOST VIEWED



 * Football
 * Cricket
 * Rugby union
 * Tennis
 * Cycling
 * F1
 * Golf
 * US sports

 * News
 * Opinion
 * Sport
 * Culture
 * Lifestyle

Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning
Sign up for our email

 * Help
 * Complaints & corrections
 * SecureDrop
 * Work for us
 * Privacy settings
 * Privacy policy
 * Cookie policy
 * Terms & conditions
 * Contact us

 * All topics
 * All writers
 * Digital newspaper archive
 * Facebook
 * YouTube
 * Instagram
 * LinkedIn
 * Twitter
 * Newsletters

 * Advertise with us
 * Search UK jobs


Back to top
© 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights
reserved. (modern)