El Palmar, Murcia is a small town of about 25,000—not much more than a village, really—in southeastern Spain, about an hour southwest of Alicante. It dates to the 15th century and is named for its abundance of palm trees. El Palmar doesn’t have its own town hall, but its well-regarded hospital is where most babies in Murcia are born. Life generally goes on at a delightfully easygoing pace.
El Palmar’s most famous son is just 19. He is Carlos Alcaraz, already now the world’s No. 1 tennis player. Unlike his hometown, Alcaraz is anything but laidback, at least on a tennis court.
In fact, since bursting onto the pro tour—all of 14 months ago or so—winning his first ATP tournament in July 2021, the teen has done pretty much everything at a blistering pace. Known for his superlative speed, Alcaraz has seemed to be on an accelerated schedule to get to the top of the game.
Many expected him to get there. Few expected it to happen this soon. Alcaraz is the youngest No. 1 in history.
“This is something I’ve dreamed about, winning a Grand Slam, since I was a kid,” said the kid after winning the 2022 US Open, his first major.
What raised expectations so quickly is that Alcaraz possessed every tool in the trade, unheard of for someone his age. A heavily torqued, full-throttle forehand. Blazing zero-to-60 speed and the ability to change direction on a dime. Smooth agility and freakish flexibility. A backhand that he can slice, roll or punch. And a net game and the kind of soft hands that usually take many years to develop.
The Spaniard is like a car spec’d out with all the options you could ever imagine.
But the young man is blessed with things a coach just can’t order. A fearlessness that allows him to paint lines on break points and feather a drop volley when he finds himself in a hole. An innate magnetism. A flair for showmanship. And keen instincts that dictate when to lift a soft lob and when to blast away. (Okay, he’s still a teen, so he may blast away a little too often. At least there’s something to improve on.)
Alcaraz’s high-octane brand of tennis produces oohs and aahs from the crowd at every match. In less than two years on tour, Alcaraz has already almost exhausted all the superlatives we can throw at him.
Growing up and making a name for himself, Alcaraz was inevitably compared to his compatriot Rafael Nadal, the all-time major winner from the Balearic island of Mallorca. Sure, they both have power and footspeed, and games that are equal parts offense and defense. They are both phenomenal retrievers. But Alcaraz is far from just a newer model of Nadal. Though Alcaraz, like Nadal, grew up playing on the red clay of Spain, the younger man has much more quickly developed into a hard-court player (in fact, it may be his best surface). Nadal eventually adapted his game extremely well to other surfaces, of course, but when he was 19, the Mallorcan didn’t yet have much of a serve or volley. Alcaraz seemingly arrived in the pro ranks already a complete package, fully outfitted for success.
Alcaraz is like that precocious 14-year-old who skipped high school and went straight to college, collecting a law degree when all his buddies were just getting their high-school diplomas. The Spaniard almost immediately began accumulating “firsts” and “youngest this” and “youngest that” accolades. So his ascent to the top of tennis is not a surprise.
Going into Sunday’s final, Alcaraz had a lot of miles in his legs. Three straight five-setters in the fourth round, quarters, and semis, which all went the distance, edging past midnight or going deep into the wee hours. The Spaniard spent nearly 14 hours on court in just three matches and nearly 24 hours total en route to the championship.
In the final for at least a set-and-a-half, Alcaraz finally looked a little gassed. After one too many grueling rallies in the second set, Casper Ruud seemed to have gained the upper hand. But Alcaraz received a jolt of adrenaline in the crucial third-set tiebreak, and he turned the match around with the kind of high-flying shotmaking we’ve come to expect from him. The Spaniard once again demonstrated an uncanny ability to shake off bad decisions, bad play, and bad luck and get right back to applying himself to the mission at hand.
That—especially for a teenager—is not normal.
In the course of all those tank-emptying journeys, we learned something we perhaps didn’t yet know about Alcaraz. It’s not just that he has all the shots or is seemingly indefatigable. Or that he has blistering speed and brute-force power. It’s what’s under the hood. Alcaraz teems with fight and heart. During the Jannik Sinner quarterfinal, the semi against home-country hero Frances Tiafoe, and the final against Ruud, Alcaraz reached down and found another gear and reserves he had no right to discover.
“Now I've played more matches in five sets, I am more prepared mentally and physically,” said Alcaraz after his semifinal win. “Yeah, it was 12 months of working hard in the gym, on the court.”
“But I would say it's all mental,” he added.
Perhaps the Nadal comparisons aren’t that far off base after all.
Though Alcaraz is fast becoming a household name, the speed of his trajectory has still produced a little whiplash. Tennis is littered with teenage disaster stories of unfulfilled potential, of course. Will it prove to have been too much, too fast? Or is Alcaraz simply unstoppable?
Either way, it’s going to be a heck of a ride.
