Carlos Alcaraz won his first Australian Open on Sunday in Melbourne, making him the youngest man to achieve a career Grand Slam (winning at least one at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open).
It’s not surprising, really. He has been breaking records a lot since the beginning. In 2022 at the age of 19, he was the youngest player to reach world No. 1. And when he burst onto the tennis scene at the age of 16, he was already generating buzz.
In many ways, his meteoric rise is similar to that of fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal – and before him, Bjorn Borg. Anyone watching him play even then knew they were watching something special. It would have been a huge shock if he had drifted off into nowhere. Fortunately, he is a great and worthy champion. Tennis needed him more after the retirement of Nadal and Roger Federer.
He plays with the heart and courage you might want from a great champion. I covered the Cincinnati Open in 2023 and attended the best non-slam tournament I’ve ever seen. It was Novak Djokovic and Alcaraz; Alcaraz was heartbroken, but he taunted and fought and played with all the determination he had. In short, the world No. 1 is every worthy fan of the Big 3 (Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer).
And yet there is something a little different about Alcaraz. Each of the Big 3 – and perhaps especially Nadal – played with a different kind of passion. As if being forced to win was a fever; something almost out of their control. Nadal said, “I learned throughout my career to enjoy suffering.” And Nadal suffered. He has been part of more “all-time greats” matches than any other player – usually against Federer or Djokovic. They were epic performances that often stretched over five hours and all the feet were paralyzed due to birth defects which made the whole process painful.
Not so with Alcaraz. Not that he doesn’t suffer, of course. His five-and-a-half-hour French Open win over Jannik Sinner last year will go down in history as one of the best matches of all time. And a few days ago he was crowded and cleaned part of his fight with Alexander Zverev.
And yet, suffering is not the primary condition of Alcaraz. It’s a joy.
I’ve been watching tennis for more decades than I care to admit, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen a top player enjoy tennis as much as Alcaraz does.
That doesn’t mean he’s always happy. His loss at the Paris Olympics to Djokovic hurt him – he failed to win a match until the summer of 2024. You are facing a huge disappointment. But he came back last year and finished the season by adding two points to his tally.
Make no mistake. We are lucky to have Alcaraz; Like all professional sports, the long-term success of tennis depends almost entirely on the star quality of our top players. We could be facing a post-Fedalovic collapse. Alcaraz (and to a lesser extent Sinner) made sure we didn’t.
Tennis is alive.
