Carlos Alcaraz

Carlos Alcaraz (born May 5, 2003, El Palmar, Murcia, Spain) is a Spanish professional tennis player who in 2022, at age 19, became the youngest athlete in history to reach the top spot in the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour rankings. He attained number one that year by winning the U.S. Open, becoming the first male teenaged champion at that major tournament since Pete Sampras in 1990. Known for his exceptional speed and relentlessly aggressive style, Alcaraz is considered to be, alongside his chief rival, Italy’s Jannik Sinner, one of the two best young men’s tennis players in the cohort coming of age after the era of the Big Three (Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer).

Early life

Alcaraz is the second of four sons born to Carlos Alcaraz González, a former professional tennis player who became a coach, and Virginia Garfia Escandón, a former sales assistant at IKEA. His father bought him his first racket, and he began playing tennis at the age of four at the local tennis club in Murcia, in southeastern Spain. At the time, Alcaraz’s father was the athletic director of the club, which had counted Carlos Alcaraz’s great uncle and grandfather as members. With so much tennis in his family history, Alcaraz loved the sport from the beginning and dreamed of pursuing it as a career.

Alcaraz showed enough promise in his early teens to earn sponsorships, which enabled him to pay coaches and to travel to junior tournaments in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. In 2018, at the age of 15, he moved to Villena to begin training with Juan Carlos Ferrero, a former top-ranked player and the 2003 French Open winner. Ferrero in 2023 recalled to Vogue what had impressed him about the precocious young Alcaraz: “Especially the fact that he was doing a lot of different things—drop shots and lobs and running to the net, things that young kids don’t do….He was very dynamic, you could already see that.”

Alcaraz competed in junior International Tennis Federation (ITF) Tour tournaments from 2017 to 2020 and achieved a career-high ITF junior ranking of 22 on January 6, 2020.

Professional career

Alcaraz made his ATP Tour debut in February 2020 at the Rio Open. There the 16-year-old defeated the number 41-ranked fellow Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas, 7–6, 4–6, 7–6, in a 3-hour 37-minute first-round match before falling in the second round.

In February 2021 the 17-year-old Alcaraz was the youngest competitor at the Australian Open, his Grand Slam main-draw debut. He advanced to the second round after defeating the Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp, 6–1, 6–4, 6–4. That same year, Alcaraz earned his first ATP title when he topped Frenchman Richard Gasquet in straight sets, 6–2, 6–2, at Umag, Croatia, in July. By then 18 years old, Alcaraz was the youngest player to win an ATP title since 2008.

Alcaraz’s rapid rise in professional tennis reached new heights during the 2022 season. After defeating Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman in straight sets, 6–4, 6–2, to win in Rio de Janeiro in February, he claimed the Miami title in a 7–5, 6–4 victory over Norway’s Casper Ruud in March. At the Madrid Open in April he became the first player to defeat both Nadal and Djokovic at the same event, doing so on his way to winning the title in straight sets, 6–3, 6–1, against Germany’s Alexander Zverev. Alcaraz’s crowning moment came in September at the U.S. Open, when he defeated Ruud 6–4, 2–6, 7–6, 6–3 to earn his first Grand Slam title. On September 12 he officially became the top-ranked player in men’s tennis, the youngest player ever to reach that mark.

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Alcaraz had another strong season in 2023, during which he won titles in Buenos Aires; Indian Wells, California; Barcelona; Madrid; and London. An injury kept him from competing at the Australian Open, but Alcaraz made it to the semifinals at the French Open in May, where he lost in four sets to Djokovic. He again faced the Serbian great in early July, in the final at Wimbledon. In a hard-fought match that some observers characterized as the “changing of the guard,” the 20-year-old Alcaraz prevailed, 1–6, 7–6, 6–1, 3–6, 6–4, earning his second Grand Slam title. Alcaraz made it to the semifinals at the U.S. Open and finished the year ranked number two.

Alcaraz started the 2024 season by making it to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, his best finish there so far. He then defended his title at Indian Wells in March. At the French Open, Alcaraz won grueling five-set matches against Sinner in the semifinal and Zverev in the final to win his first Grand Slam on clay. That victory made Alcaraz, at 21 years old, the youngest men’s tennis player to have won major tournaments on all three surfaces (hard court, grass, and clay). He increased his Grand Slam tally to four by defeating Djokovic at Wimbledon in July.

In August Alcaraz played in his first Olympic Games, in Paris. There he took the silver medal in singles after a gripping 7–6, 7–6 loss to frequent rival Djokovic in the final.