Juan Carlos Ferrero – “Carlos Alcaraz was born for the big occasions”

Like many tennis “aficionados” who witnessed Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s epic in New York, Ferrero predicts a dominant future for the pair of rivals

Carlos Alcaraz with Juan Carlos Ferrero, his coach || Antoine Couvercelle / Panoramic

Chris Oddo

September 12, 2022

Juan Carlos Ferrero, the former Grand Slam champion and world No 1 who is now in charge of shaping the game and future of Carlos Alcaraz, tells reporters of a vision that occurred to him during this US Open fortnight.

“The other day I said to someone in the press that maybe [Jannik] Sinner and Carlos could dominate the tour for maybe the next ten years, from what I saw, the level that I saw the other day,” he said.

Ferrero knows that there are plenty of other forces on tour at the moment, but how can you blame him for singling out these two after watching Sinner and Alcaraz battle for five hours and 15 minutes in an epic quarter-final in Flushing Meadows last week?

Anyone else who watched closely likely feels the same way.

“Of course, there’s another players like Zverev, Thiem, Casper, Tsitsipas – they are going to be there, they going to have opportunities to win Grand Slams for sure. But with all respect, that’s what I think,” he said.

Ferrero: “Alcaraz was born for this”

Speaking to reporters on Sunday night in New York after his charge defeated Casper Ruud in the US Open final, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(1), 6-3, Ferrero said that the teenager is able to produce mind-boggling tennis in the biggest moments because he is born for it.

“I think he [was] born to play this kind of tournament, born to play these kind of matches,” Ferrero said. “Since the moment that I started with him, I saw some things that were different than the other guys at his age.

Carlos Alcaraz, US Open trophy 2022 | © AI / Reuters / Panoramic

“I am still seeing it on the court. In important moments, he always tries [to go for it]. This is one of the more difficult things in tennis, even on his first Grand Slam final.”

Ferrero says that the competitive fire is also a key element of Alcaraz’s success.

“He’s a great competitor,” he said. “He’s there. He’s trying all the time. We could see it the last matches, even against Cilic, Sinner, or Tiafoe, that he never gave up. He always wanted to push and try to stay on the match.”

A Slam title at 19? Not a surprise for Ferrero

Alcaraz became the first teenager to win a major since Rafael Nadal in 2005, and he’s climbed to the top of the ATP rankings, as the youngest player to ever hold the No 1 spot.

Ferrero doesn’t find any of it shocking.

“It’s a surprise for everybody except maybe to me because I trained with him every day and I know what he’s able to play on the court,” he said. “I was pretty sure that maybe it wasn’t this year, could be next one. So at the end it was that one. Very happy about it.

“It was fast, but now definitely we want to continue…”