One tennis grand slam does not a legend make, but Carlos Alcaraz has begun the journey

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates with his trophy after winning the 2022 US Open Tennis tournament men's singles final match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.

Carlos Alcaraz, the newly crowned US Open men’s singles champion, is the youngest ever men’s singles tennis No.1 in the world. But had it not been for Covid, he would have gotten there sooner, his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero said at a press conference at Flushing Meadows, New York, minutes after his ward won the men’s singles title and his first-ever Major.

Having tasted success on the ITF’s Men’s World Tennis Tour circuit throughout 2019 (Alcaraz made his debut in late 2018), he won his first professional tour tennis match at the Rio Open in Brazil in February 2020. Just as Alcaraz, who hails from Spain, was ready to graduate from playing in entry-level tournaments (ITF circuit) and the challenger circuit (a step above the ITF circuit but lower than the main ATP tour), Covid-19 struck.

Asked if Alcaraz could have risen to the top had Covid-19 not interrupted play worldwide, Ferrero said: “Could be, could be… because he was about to play at Indian Wells, Miami, and some of the other big tournaments that were big. We had to stop for three months (in 2020) and then go back to playing the Challenger tournaments…”

Ferrero was a former no.1 men's singles player himself and has won the French Open (Roland Garros) title in 2003.

Youngest No.1 in ATP history since August 1973

Cliff Drysdale, ESPN announcer and former ATP professional, is betting on the young Spaniard too. “I think that Alcaraz is going to win as many Major titles as Rafael Nadal (also from Spain),” he told Moneycontrol over the phone from Texas. Drysdale admits that when he made that comment at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in July, some of Nadal’s fans were upset. At present, Nadal leads the pack of Major title winners on the men’s circuit, with a total of 22. But Drysdale told us before the start of the US Open that he would stand by his prognosis.

Meteoric rise
Alcaraz’s rise to the top was dizzying.

In 2021, he won his first title in Umag, Croatia, in July. Additionally he won the Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals, a year-end tournament that features the world’s top 21-and-under singles players of the ATP tour season. Fun fact: At 19, Alcaraz is still considered a next generation player and therefore eligible for the NextGen year-end tournament this year as well. But word on the tennis courts is that he is unlikely to play at the NextGen year-end tournament this year, given that he already won it last year. Besides, he is already the world No. 1.

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“It has been crazy for me. I never thought that I was going to achieve something like that at 19. Everything has come so fast,” he said in his post-match press conference after winning the US Open.

After he won his first big title at Miami, an ATP Masters 1000 event, titles came thick and fast, including wins over tennis greats Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Nadal.

According to data put out by the ATP Tour after his Sunday night win, Alcaraz has won the most titles in 2022 (5) and won the most matches so far this year (51).

“Of course I’m hungry for more. I want to be at the top (of the rankings) for many, many weeks, hopefully for many years,” he told reporters when asked if his ascent tired him out or makes him hungry.

His coach Ferrero feels that Alcaraz can dominate men’s tennis for many years to come. “Maybe (Jannik) Sinner (Italy) and Alcaraz can dominate the next 10 years from what I saw the other day,” said Ferrero. He was referring to the classic quarter final match between 21-year-old Sinner and Alcaraz at the US Open. That match lasted for 5 hours and 15 minutes and was the second-longest US Open match ever. It got over at 2:50 am, the latest ever finish to a US Open match. At Wimbledon, a couple of months earlier, Sinner had easily overcome Alcaraz 6-1, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3.

“Of course players like (Alexander) Zverev (Germany), (Dominic) Thiem (Austria), Casper (Ruud; from Norway) and (Stefanos) Tsitsipas (Greece) are going to be around and have opportunities to win Major titles, but with all due respect, that is what I think,” added Ferrero.

The Big 3, Next-gen and the next Next-gen
For those who felt that men’s tennis would be left with a void after Nadal (currently ranked No. 3 in the world), Djokovic (currently No. 7), and Roger Federer (former No.1) retire, they can rest assured that men’s tennis is in good hands.

It’s not just the next generation that is ready to take over. Alcaraz, technically, belongs to the next next-generation of players waiting in the wings. Tsitsipas, Zverev, Thiem and Medvedev (who won last year’s US Open) have often been touted as the next-generation players. But they’ve had to struggle for a variety of reasons.

Tsitsipas never really recovered after his devastating Roland Garros final loss against Djokovic in 2021, after coming within a few points of a victory. Since that match, he has won just two titles, thrice made it to the finals and made it to the semi-finals four times.

After finishing as the runner-up at Roland Garros (the second of the four Majors played in a year) twice, and once at the Australian Open (the year’s first Major tournament), Thiem finally won his first Major title at the US Open in 2020. But a wrist injury and recuperation has slowed him down considerably since 2021; he is now ranked 216 in the world.

Zverev, the 2021 Olympic gold medallist, has made it to just one Major final till date, though he has won 19 titles so far.

Meanwhile, the next next-Gen players have begun clawing their way up. Largely considered to be Ruud (now ranked No. 2 in the world, behind Alcaraz), Sinner (ranked No. 11), Canadian Felix Augur – Aliassime (No. 13) and Alcaraz, these players have added to the competition.

And that will make for some interesting tennis in the years to come, after over a decade and a half of being completely and utterly dominated by just three players, who have won 63 slams (Federer: 20, Djokovic: 21, Nadal: 22).
Carlos Alcaraz's ascent is therefore welcome and a much-needed shot in the arm for the game.