Carlos Alcaraz should still be asleep. He’s just won the U.S. Open, his first Grand Slam, beating buzzy Norwegian Casper Ruud in the final. Before that, he won three consecutive backbreaking five-set matches, two of which went past 2 a.m. and one of which ended the latest of any match in the tournament’s history. He played 24 hours of grand slam tennis in all, divided over seven matches in two weeks—the most played by any man, at any slam, since tennis started keeping track of the time in 1999. His wins tested the human bounds of stamina, exhaustion, pain, gravity.
And somehow, here he is, the day after his Sunday night championship, fully conscious and in pleasant, quiet spirits as he makes his way around the interview suite at the InterContinental Times Square Hotel. I ask if he got some rest. He did. He ordered some sushi (he loves sushi), and then he went to bed. He laughs. “I was at my limit.”
His victory means he’s been crowned the world’s top-ranked tennis player at the tender age of 19. Pete Sampras was 21 when he first took it over. Boris Becker was 23. Alcaraz is the first teenager to ever hold this spot on the ATP tour, and his youth, a beacon of joy and exuberance, signals that a new era in men’s tennis is finally upon us.
Carlos Alcaraz Garfia was born in El Palmar, Murcia, Spain, in the spring of 2003, two months before a 22-year-old Swiss player named Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon. By the time Alcaraz was out on the court, at age four, his fellow countryman Rafael Nadal had already won four slams, and Federer 11. Novak Djokovic appeared in 2008 to interrupt the steamroll, and win his first at that year’s Australian Open. There has not been a moment in Alcaraz’s life or career where the legacy of the Big Three hasn’t been a thing.
Even now––as Federer’s 41-year-old knee hangs in the balance between one last return to the mainstage, Nadal is still racking up slams, and Djokovic, battling global vaccine regulations more often than opponents on court, is still winning where he’s allowed to play (at Wimbledon, for example)––all three are still here, still relevant, still, at least in Djokovic and Nadal’s case, making only occasional room for others to hold up winners’ trophies.
Men’s tennis has been waiting loudly, impatiently, for a wave of young talent to upend this trifecta for at least the last five years. Hopes have been pinned on any number of contenders––Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem (before he was injured), Stefanos Tsitipas. But even when they did manage to wrestle slams away, it felt more like they were a cadre of next big players, not the next Big Three. With Alcaraz, though, it feels different. “When you’re a kid, you always want to be like someone, you know?” he says. “It was incredible for me to grow up watching [the Big Three’s] matches. Just the best guys in the world, dominating the ATP, winning for so many years. That helped me to be like them––well, to try to be like them.”
Nadal, who won his first Grand Slam as a 19-year-old at the 2005 French Open, is the player people simply can’t refrain from comparing with Alcaraz. If the words “Spain” and “tennis” are put anywhere near each other in a sentence, all roads lead to Rafa. While the idea of Nadal as Alcaraz’s Obi-Wan Kenobi is a nice one, it doesn’t exist. Alcaraz doesn’t turn to any of the Big Three for advice. Juan Carlos Ferrero, his coach, a former world No. 1 and the 2003 French Open men’s champion, guides him through everything he needs to know. The country has a healthy pipeline of talented players beyond Rafa, too, some of whom Alcaraz idolized growing up, and some with whom he still competes with now––Pablo Andújar, David Ferrer, Feliciano Lopez, Pablo Carreño Busta.
Alcaraz lives and trains at the JC Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy in Alicante, Spain. The academy is about an hour’s drive from his house, so on his days off, he goes to see his family, where he is regarded as the teenager he still is. “When we’re at home, my parents tell me what I have to do. You know––‘Do this, do that,’ just normal parent-kid stuff. I’m normal.” He shrugs. “I’m a normal guy.” Moments after his win over Ruud, Alcaraz dashed to the stands and spidey-climbed to get to the group in his box. They wrapped him in a huddle, before he hugged each of them, one at a time.
There is something transcendent, already, about the way Alcaraz moves across the court and the way he plays the game. His real-time strategy, his execution, his net game, his drop shots. It’s shocking. This isn’t hyperbole. He’s been on a steady ascent through the rankings since he made his ATP tour debut in February of 2020, when he was 16. What began as an escalator became a rocket ship.
There are other players who are just as fast, Australia’s Alex de Minaur, for example, and there are other guys who win––Medvedev, Nick Kyrgios. But with them, at least to the casual observer, there’s stuff to work on––regular tennis things like attitude, playing style, consistency. Alcaraz, for now, plays like a magician, and a serial killer.
In the fourth round of the tournament, he beat 2014 champion Marin Čilić in the first of what would be three straight five set matches on his way to the final. Next up, it was the quarterfinals against Italy’s young gun Jannik Sinner that went five sets, five hours, and past everyone’s bedtime. Alcaraz won the first set and in the 12th game of the second, delivered a behind-the-back forehand so preposterous it bordered on obscene. The shot wasn’t a beautiful accident. He’d sprinted across the baseline to Sinner’s ball in time enough to realize what he needed to do. He paused, jumped, and flipped his wrist to place it. Dagger and whimsy, in a fraction of a millisecond. If Alcaraz were a tennis-playing cartoon, this is the shot the animators would use to sequence his game. It was so unbelievable, the impossibility of what happened next was muted. There was a full, abrupt change in momentum, a split step, and supersonic sprint to the service line for a backhand to end the point. The commentators couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. A camera cut to Ferrero, on his feet, chuckling, a “What are you gonna do?” dad expression on his face.
Alcaraz didn’t leave Flushing Meadows until 5 a.m. that night. A day and some change later, he was across the net from American player Frances Tiafoe to play the semis. Tiafoe, the 24-year-old force who took down Nadal in the fourth round, is the one former First Lady Michelle Obama came to see when she sat courtside. Alcaraz won. Nearly 24,000 people filled the sold-out seats of Arthur Ashe Stadium that night, and by the screams of it, most were hoping for a Tiafoe victory. Alcaraz played right through it, respectfully, ruthlessly, without breaking his concentration or his racquet. He and Tiafoe hugged, a real hug, at the end. They talk to each other a lot off court, and have been talking since their match. “He made some jokes afterwards,” Alcaraz says. “He’s a joker.”
Alcaraz is aware that his on-court movement is insane. It’s his favorite part about his game. “I consider myself a guy who learns things really quick.” he says. “I learn very fast, and I work really hard. Every single day. I worked on precision movements the last two years, really top ones.”
Did he have a sense that the U.S. Open would be his first slam? “I didn’t,” he says. “I hadn’t really envisioned which one would be first.” What about the next one? He grins. “I wouldn’t mind if I won in Australia or at Wimbledon or Roland Garros. A slam is a slam.”
Younger players, kids much younger than Alcaraz, have been clamoring for his advice. He can’t go anywhere in Spain without being recognized. What he says to one new player is what he says to all of them. “You have to just enjoy everything.” He grins again. When he leaves the hotel, it will be to head back to Spain, for the Davis Cup. Somehow he appears unfazed by the turnaround.
I see him later, in the lobby, posing for selfies with starstruck admirers, including one barking doodle-mix. Alcaraz is smiling the entire time. He follows his own advice.
