Carlos Alcaraz Garfia is no longer the future of Spanish tennis, he is the present and, above all, a great tennis player. The precocity with which Carlos Alcaraz has burst into the ranks of the best rackets in the world, only reminiscent of Rafael Nadal. He is 21 years, 1 month and four days old and He is already champion of the US Open, Wimbledon and Roland Garros. Three Grand Slam finals and three titles on the three existing surfaces. Nobody ever did it so soon.
YesHis career is full of records. In 2022 he won the US Open, beating Ruud in the final, which made him the youngest number one in history. He has already become the youngest tennis player in history to reach the round of 16 of the US Open since Michael Chang and Pete Sampras in 1989 and the youngest player to beat a top 3 player in the US tournament since the tournament began. ATP rankings in 1973. Also the first player born in 2003 to win a match, with his debut on the 2020 Tour of the Association of Professional Tennis Players in Rio de Janeiro and the youngest winner since the Chilean Garín.
However, there may be things you still don't know about him. We leave you 10 facts that you may not know:
Personal information:
I am 21 years old. He was born in El Palmar (Murcia). He is 1.85 and weighed 76 kilos until a little over a year ago, but a change in his routine made him gain 5 kilos in muscle mass until he was 81.
Family
Alcaraz Garfia is the second of four brothers. The others are Álvaro, 21 years old; Sergio, 11; and Jaime, 9. “They all play tennis and the little ones want to follow in Carlos' footsteps and one of them could make it,” according to his father. Carlos's father is the director of the Country Club tennis school. When he was barely three years old he bought him his first racket. But that passion for tennis has been passed down from generation to generation. Grandfather, the head of this sports-loving clan, was the first member of the tennis club. And he has been transferring that love for tennis, until reaching the new champion Carlos Alcaraz.
Brides
Is he boy of the moment, he new idol of world tennis and also the golden bachelor. Like Rafa Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz is very reserved with his private life and he doesn't usually talk about family or friends or romances…However, in 2022 it came to light that he had a girlfriend. She was from Murcia, her name is María González Giménez and is his biggest fan. María is also a tennis player. She competes for the Murcia Tennis Club, the same one where Alcaraz began to take his first steps. But their relationship ended in a breakup. Last year he was linked to the singer Ana Mena. However, this supposed relationship, which some media ventured to classify as an incipient courtship, never received any confirmation or photograph that demonstrated the link between the tennis player and the artist. Likewise, after the breakup of Aitana and Sebastián Yatra, the athlete's name was one of those that was heard as a substitute for the Colombian. A friendship that, beyond that, a friendship, has never shown more signs of turning into love.
His grandfather, fan and collector
His grandfather, Carlos Alcaraz, at 88 years old, obsessively searches for any information, no matter how small, that is published about his grandson. And he has been doing it for so many years, since the current world number 16 started playing when he was a kid, that the volume of saved clippings is almost encyclopedic. The three “C” motto that the young tennis player has always carried as the key to his success, the famous “head, heart and balls”, It was instilled by his grandfather.
His house
He 18-year-old tennis player started living in a 25-square-meter prefabricated house, which is a double room with bathroom included. And there the pandemic happened, hosted in one of the 25 m2 cabins built with wood, within the enclosure and composed by a spacious room with a full bathroom and a cozy porch with views of the garden, television, Wi-Fi and air conditioning.
Now, become number 2 in the world, he continues there, although in a 90 m2 house also inside the school and where others also lived former professional tennis players such as Nicolás Almagro and Guillermo García-López and Ferrero himself.
The interior of this The new home is simple, with few details and a small porch. Of course, although free of luxuries, this modest home is located within the exclusive JC Ferrero Equelite Academy.
Studies
Focused on tennis, in 2020 he was in the 1st year of Baccalaureate at the Marques de los Vélez Institute in El Palmar and continued his studies remotely. Now, little else is known about this facet that seems incompatible with his meteoric career.
Golf, one of his hobbies
On the days he has rest he likes to take advantage of the time practicing another of his hobbies such as golf or going fishing with his friends. He also declares himself a football fan and fan of Real Madrid, a club he loves and was quick to congratulate on their 15th. In the white club they also boast about the non-tennis Madridismo and there is no tournament in which they do not send a message of support.
His first coach and his current team
Carlos Santos Bosque was the first coach that Carlos Alcaraz Garfía had. Years ago he already assured that “he had the whole road ahead of him to be among the top 10 in the ATP”, although he revealed that “as a child he was a messy child, who did not have his racket ready and who even had to fight for the apple and the pear”. “Carlos, from a very young age, had different things. He had so much fun on the court that he made mounds with the sand and when it was time to play he did it with those his age and with the older ones and he never seemed nervous. He isolated himself when he jumped on the court and his winning spirit, which he has always had, made him enjoy when others suffered when they were watched,” said this technician who has a degree in Physical Education and Physiotherapy in an interview. At that time his coach gave him a curious nickname. “I called him Tarzan because he was like Tarzan in the jungle on the track… I was in his house.”
Juan Carlos Ferrero, former world number onehas guided the steps of the new Spanish tennis star, Carlos Alcaraz, since the summer of 2018. Alcaraz currently has a perfectly organized work team who goes further: Albert Molina (he is Alcaraz's agent and knows the ins and outs of the circuit like no one else), Alberto Lledó (physical trainer), Juanjo Moreno and Sergio Hernández (physiotherapists), Juan José López (doctor) and, finally, Isabel Balaguer. Or what is the same: Carlos Alcaraz's psychologist. The Valencian is in charge of teaching Carlitos tricks so that he does not lose concentration at key moments in the matches.
Your secret recipe
In an interview in The Anthill, Alcaraz revealed part of his sporting secrets and gastronomic. The one that surprised the most was undoubtedly the dish that he claimed to eat before the games and that provided him with the energy necessary to win the victory. Of course, he now prepares it with gluten-free pasta since like other elite athletes of the stature of Carvajal or Djokovic, The man from Murcia has also joined the “gluten free” trend. A diet that ensures increases your performance and reduces injuries.
It is not surprising that pasta is one of the favorite foods of most athletes., as it is a simple and quick way to accumulate carbohydrates that you will then 'burn' while holding the racket. What shocked his followers is that Alcaraz prepares his own extravagant pasta dish: “ambrosia pasta”, a recipe whose uniqueness is in the 'sauce'.
Its preparation is very simple: replace what we would do with a tomato sauce with this cocoa cream. To do this, nothing more than cooking a little pasta to taste and then finishing it with this ultra-energetic cream, loaded with calories and carbohydrates. If the nutty sandwich with chorizo that former Real Madrid fan Michel was responsible for advertising already left many of us with our mouths open, this new recipe surprised everyone and everyone.
His past with Rafa Nadal
All of these achievements at such a young age have caused many to continually compare Carlos Alcaraz with Rafa Nadal. This is not the only thing that the one from Palma de Mallorca and the one from Murcia have in common. Carlos Alcaraz participated in the Rafa Nadal Tour by Mapfre, becoming under-12 champion in 2015 and under-14 champion just a year later. He doesn't like being compared to the Mallorcan because he is the idol of his childhood.