There were many topics that could have rushed into Carlos Alcaraz’s mind in the delirium that followed his attainment of a goal he has chased his entire life, the career grand slam achieved by defeating Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open. He could have thought about the immense hard work and discipline it took to achieve all of this, or his comically large, tight-knit team and family that faithfully follows him around the world, or even how close he came to losing it all during his semi-final match two days earlier.
Instead, as Alcaraz navigated the long line of post-slam media interviews for the seventh time in his career while tightly holding the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, his thoughts cast back to … his haters: “To be honest, I’m now thinking about the people who said I wouldn’t make it, who thought I’d come here to Australia and not even make it past the quarter-finals,” said Alcaraz in Spanish to Eurosport Spain. “That I’d come here to Australia and not play good tennis. Those who didn’t believe in me. I remember those people, honestly. It seems ironic that when I should be thinking about my people, my team, all the work we’ve put in, in the end that’s the thought that came to me now.”
There have of course been many challenges in Alcaraz’s career, and he has had to overcome ample obstacles to continue winning major titles at such an unprecedented rate, but controversy is not something he is familiar with. For all his fire on the court, the 22-year-old is a warm, pleasant person who plays fairly and has become an incredibly popular figure on and off the court. Last year, despite being dominated by him throughout the year, his fellow players voted him the winner of ATP’s sportsmanship award. He is not used to being part of any sort of disharmony.
For that reason, the aftermath of 17 December, when Alcaraz made the shocking announcement that he had ended his partnership with his longtime coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, was an unusual experience. The next day, reporters showed up at his tennis club in El Palmar, Murcia in an attempt to elicit comment from him on the subject as he drove into work. The noise only grew louder once Ferrero broke his silence. While Alcaraz and his team presented the split as mutual, the 45-year-old coach stated in a number of interviews that he had wished to stay on and was pained by no longer being part of Alcaraz’s journey. For weeks, questions about the world No 1’s decision and future prospects dominated Spain’s large network of sports radio shows and newspapers. Alcaraz is very active on social media, meaning he saw all of it.
He handled those difficulties the right way, focusing on his work with his team and on this ultimate goal. Becoming the youngest man to ever win seven grand slam titles – and the career grand slam – is the deserved payoff. It is so typical of his prodigious talent and toughness that, in his first ever tournament since promoting Samuel Lopez as his main coach, he departed with this career-defining achievement.
While Ferrero will always be a key figure in Alcaraz’s development, this victory is validation of his decision. Alcaraz is still so young, but he is also maturing. He has shown that he is capable of taking more responsibility for his career and making difficult decisions with his team.
Despite how Jannik Sinner stumbled, his loss to Djokovic being his poorest result in a major tournament since defeat by Daniil Medvedev at Wimbledon 2024, the ATP remains a duopoly. The two players will continue to battle each other in finals for the foreseeable future and Alcaraz will certainly lose to Sinner in future big matches. However, this tournament underlined why the Spaniard is also on his own unique path and is ahead of all other players since the end of the big three era.
Alcaraz has been on an unprecedented trajectory for a long time now. Before achieving these new age records, at 19 he became the youngest man to reach ATP No 1 at after his US Open triumph in 2022, the only teenager to ever do so. With this result, he has made a strong case for being the best young male player the sport has ever seen. Whether this will convert to his ultimate goal of sitting at the top table of men’s tennis as an equal of Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer is still far from certain. However, these are still only the early days of Alcaraz’s historic career and he has so much more to achieve.
