On the 14th of July, 2024, Spanish tennis maestro, Carlos Alcaraz, won Wimbledon for the second time, defeating Serb Novak Djokovic with consummate ease in the final. Alcaraz, who was born on the 5th of May, 2003, so was 21 at the time, won 6-2, 6-2, 7-6, and his opponent was never really in the contest at all.
Alcaraz also beat Djokovic in the final 12 months earlier and there was a sense that that game represented a changing of the guard. Now, that is more than just a feeling and it is clear that Djokovic is the past and Alcaraz, and others, are the future of the game. This is not to say that Djokovic cannot add to his record 24 Grand Slam titles, but it seems almost certain that the gap between the incredible tally he has amassed and the number his young rival has won is only going to get smaller.
Early Career
Alcaraz was born in Murcia, in the south-east of Spain and has three brothers. His father was a tennis coach at a nearby club and so it was natural that he would take up the game, which he did with gusto at the age of four. Clearly talented, and with a love of the game that made him hungry to practice and improve, Alcaraz moved to the Alicante province, north-east of his home, to train at the academy of former French Open winner, Juan Carlos Ferrero.
He made his ATP debut (in terms of the main draw) as recently as February 2020 when he was given a wild card for the Rio Open. The following year he became the youngest male to make the main draw of the season’s first Grand Slam, the Australian Open and over the years that have followed so many records for the “youngest” have been broken.
First ATP Win
Alcaraz continued his steady progress and, in July 2021, he won his first ATP Tour crown at the Croatia Open. At 18, he was the youngest winner on tour since Japanese star, Kei Nishikori won it in 2008, and it was clear he was heading right to the top of the sport. At that year’s US Open, he became the youngest man to make the fourth round of a major in more than 30 years.
Later in the year, he became the youngest male player ever to make the top 35 in the world. Cementing his position as easily the best young player around, at the end of the year he won the Next Gen ATP Finals and tennis fans could only wait with bated breath for what this dizzying talent might produce in 2022.
First Grand Slam
The charming Spaniard seems to break new ground almost whenever he plays, with some sort of record or new landmark being set. The year 2022 would bring his first ATP 500 and 1000 titles, and helped him become the youngest player to reach the top 10 in the world since Rafael Nadal. Indeed, so many of the benchmarks that Alcaraz has reached either break one of Nadal’s records, or are the best since the legendary Mallorcan.
Days after turning 19, the man from Murcia completed an incredible win at the Madrid Open. He beat the top three seeds in consecutive matches to claim glory, becoming the first player to beat Djokovic and Nadal in consecutive clay-court matches and moved up to a career-best sixth in the world rankings.
Better was yet to come, as he would win his first Grand Slam at that year’s US Open. He was seeded third for the tournament and in the final he beat Norwegian Casper Ruud in a game that would also crown the new world number one. This made him the youngest world number one since the ATP ranking system began and he would end the season there to make yet more history.
Brilliant Champion Getting Better and Better
Since being crowned the first-ever season-end teenage world number one, Alcaraz has, bar the odd minor wobble, just gone from strength to strength. He has not held the top spot since first ascending to the summit of the rankings, with injuries, minor drops in form and the brilliance of others seeing to that. However, few people doubt that he is the best player in the world and the brightest star among the galaxy of upcoming youngsters.
In 2023 he reached 100 career wins faster than Nadal, Djokovic or Federer, with only John McEnroe reaching that landmark at a younger age. It also brought two Grand Slam semi finals (at the French Open and US Open) and his first Wimbledon title. As said, he beat Djokovic in the final in 2023, as well as 2024.
In 2024, he stepped it up yet again, winning the French Open and then completing the double by winning his second Wimbledon. In Paris, he beat rival and second seed, Jannik Sinner, in the semis, then he got the better of Alexander Zverev, the fourth seed, in the final. This meant yet another record: the youngest man to win a Slam on all court surfaces, grass, clay and hard.
Man for the Big Occasion
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By defeating Djokovic at SW19, Alcaraz took his record in Grand Slam finals to a perfect four from four. He has developed a great habit of producing his best tennis when it matters most, and after some early issues with nerves, he now seems to relish the biggest games. At the age of 21 and a few months, he has four Grand Slam titles to his name.
That means he has already won as many majors as Jim Courier and more than Arthur Ashe, Stan Wawrinka and a certain Andy Murray. Given Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker only won six in their entire careers, it is possible that Alcaraz could be level with them, or even ahead of them, by the end of the 2025 season.
His rivalry will continue to develop with the likes of Ruud, Sinner, Zverev and even Djokovic, and we can only anticipate some thrilling clashes in the years ahead. Alcaraz patently has an excellent all-courts game, with an exceptional surface, powerful groundstrokes and a brilliant tennis brain. His forehand is particularly devastating and he hits it with such power and consistency that he is hard to pin down.
On top of all that, he has a disarming naïveté and honesty, remains humble and clearly loves the sport. Quite how many Grand Slams he will end with remains to be seen but we can be certain that the next decade and more of tennis is in safe hands.