Miami is used to hurricanes, even that it could do without them, by force. Small exception for the one who crossed the city last week. Carlos, let’s call him that, is the fresh wind, new wind, rejuvenating type. A sweep of the floor to remove the old dust that we no longer dared to attack too much. At 18 (and 333 days), Carlos Alcaraz decided that the time had come for him to land at the top of the basket and became, Sunday evening, the youngest winner of the Masters 1000 in Miami. In his retro? Oh, three times nobody. Only Novak Djokovic, 19 years and 10 months old at the time.
The promise of a great career? Surely. For the 20 majors in the trophy cabinet, we will still come back later: precocity is not long-lasting, especially in tennis. But let us go to the excess of the talent of the Spaniard, in numbers. With a depressing observation: at the age when you passed Bac and permit, the young man has already made a hell of a CV.
Carlos Alcaraz, in numbers
14. The Spaniard isn’t exactly new to the pros, where he made his debut aged just 14. It was at the Futures tournament in Murcia. Two victories to start the machine.
3. He won three challengers tournaments before he turned 18, a feat achieved by only four other players before him: Gasquet, Djokovic, Del Potro and Auger-Aliassime.
3. At 18, Alcaraz already has three ATP titles. The first, in 250 in Umag, the second in 500 in Rio and finally, the third in Miami, in Masters 1000. A linear progression, what.
1. In Rio, he became the youngest player to win an ATP 500 tournament.
100. Barely a year ago, he appeared in the top 100.
11. The crackito is already at the gates of the top 10 ATP, since he is 11th in the world since Monday. At the Race, he is 2nd, just behind Nadal.
2.5. Millions of dollars. His prize money. At 18 years old. Sheltered the daronne.
1989. By defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the 2021 US Open quarter-finals, Alcaraz became the youngest player to beat a member of the world’s top 3 since Michael Chang.
5-0. The Spaniard led 5-0 in the second set against Hugo Gaston, in the round of 16 at Bercy, before losing seven games in a row and losing in two sets against the French. A crisp as there will surely be more in the career of the Spaniard. Richard Gasquet had beaten Nadal in Saint-Jean de Luz, in 2003, we know the rest.
0. He can’t beat the earliness records of any Grand Slam tournament. Michael Chang at Roland-Garros, Boris Becker at Wimbledon, Pete Sampras at the US Open and Mats Wilander at the Australian Open can sleep soundly.