ATP Miami – Alcaraz too fast for Carlos: “I did not expect to move so fast at all”

“When did you realize that you were able to beat everyone?“, asked the former world number one. The palpable embarrassment of the triumphant Floridian then had something almost touching, exposing in broad daylight the dichotomy between the competitor inhabited and sure of himself that he is on the court and this lack insurance outside.

But make no mistake about it. If he displays a very Nadalian moderation in his speech, and this is perhaps one of the points on which the so recurring comparison with his illustrious elder makes the most sense, Alcaraz knows what he wants and just as much what he wants. worth. “I must have dreamed for the first time of becoming world number one when I was five or six years old, he said. But these are childhood dreams. It wasn’t really until this year that I realized I could beat the best.”

After the Masters 1000, what is there now?

For a bit, he would be more surprised than the rest of the world at the speed of his progress in recent weeks. As if Alcaraz was going too fast for Carlos. “Of course I surprise myself, confirms the Murcian. I did not expect at all to move so quickly. My goal was to be Top 15 at the end of the year and now I’m 11th, very close to the Top 10. It means that all the work produced on a daily basis with my team is already paying off.”

Given the speed of his rise, he will very quickly have to revise his ambitions upwards for this 2022 season: he has already ticked all the boxes of the objectives set for the off-season with his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, whether in terms of ranking or results. The Top 15 is therefore a settled affair. After winning his first title in the summer of 2021 at Umag, an ATP 250, he hoped to go for an ATP 500 this year. Made. From February. “Afterwards, we said to ourselves, well, the next goal is to try to win a Masters 1000“, continues the phenomenon. From the second meeting of this caliber, it’s done.

So, even if it means making him blush, inevitably, the next step…”I would love to win a Grand Slam this year, but it’s so difficult…“, he tempers, before, all the same, to display a very concrete ambition this one: “I would like to qualify for the ATP Finals (the Masters, Ed) for the first time“. Knowing that he has already garnered 1950 points after having more than doubled his 2022 savings by winning at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday and that he occupies 2nd place in the “Race” ranking at the end of this first quarter, the thing seems more than possible.Only a certain Rafael Nadal is still ahead of him.Sacred duo.

Nadal. Alcaraz. Nadalcaraz. The idol and the announced heir. If you are tired of the comparison, or the din around the “future great Alcaraz”, bad news for you. His title in Miami will put a coin back in the machine rather than putting it on the back burner. Rafael Nadal was the first to congratulate his younger brother by tweeting just after the final: “Congratulations ‘Carlitos’ for your historic victory. Definitely the first of a long series to come!“

“If you compare me with Rafa, it probably means that I am doing very good things and that I am in the right direction.“, he dares, before a clarification, without bluster or annoyance. “I try not to think about that. Rafa is Rafa and Carlos Alcaraz is Carlos Alcaraz. Rafa is one of the greatest players of all time, I am a young man trying to live his dreams. He is my idol, he always inspired me since I was little, I watched so many of his matches. I liked to be inspired by him and to be at the same time as him on the circuit, to have the opportunity to play against him, it’s quite special. But I’m Carlos, not Rafa.” Sounds good too.