Carlos Alcaraz is going to need a bigger trophy case. Twenty-four hours after successfully defending his Mutua Madrid Open title in Madrid, Alcaraz was named the winner of the 2023 Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year award at a ceremony in Paris.
Alcaraz is the fourth ATP player to earn this particular Laureus honor all-time after Marat Safin (2001), Rafael Nadal (2006) and Andy Murray (2013). It is the second consecutive year a tennis player has won the award after Emma Raducanu did so in 2022. He beat out fellow tennis player Elena Rybakina, last year's Wimbledon champion, for the honor, as well as the Morocco men’s football team, figure skater and Olympic gold medalist Nathan Chen, and track and field star Tobi Amusan.
Accepting his award in Paris in the presence of sporting legends including Lionel Messi, whom he met on the red carpet when he arrived, Alacaraz lauded his fellow nominees—"They all deserve it as much as I do," he said in his native Spanish—before moving on to thank his family and friends.
Alcaraz earned nomination a a result of his historic 2022 season, where he won two ATP Masters 1000 events and his first Grand Slam title at the US Open. The youngest US Open champion since Pete Sampras in 1990, the then-19-year-old became the youngest world No. 1 in the history of the ATP rankings (which began in 1973) and ended the year in the top spot.
Despite missing the Australian Open with injury, Alcaraz has already won four titles this season, including Masters 1000 triumphs at Indian Wells and Madrid.
Also nominated for Laureus awards were Aclaraz's fellow Grand Slam champions Nadal (World Sportsman of the Year), Iga Swiatek (World Sportswoman of the Year) and Diede de Groot (World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability).
First held in 2000, the Laureus World Sports Awards honor annual sporting achievements in a variety of annual and discretionary categories. Nominees are selected by a panel of 1,400 international sports journalists, and winners are voted members of the Laureus World Sports Academy. At least one tennis player has won an award in all but two years dating back to 2010.
