I’m reading “Being Carlos Alcaraz” by Mark Hodgkinson. Some very endearing facts about the early Carlitos years:
1. Claycastles: He used to walk around the tennis club with a sandwich in one hand and a racquet in the other. It’s clay country and he used build clay-castles in between training drills and practice.
2. Family Affair: when he said tennis is in his blood, he means it. His great-uncle Tomas was president of the local country club, Real Sociedad Club de Campo Murcia. It used to be used for clay-pigeon shooting. His father founded and was director of the tennis academy at that club, which has now been renamed the 'Carlos Alcaraz Academy' in honour of both junior and senior! Eldest brother Alvaro coaches there, younger brother Jaime trains there.
3. His father, Carlos Alcaraz Snr, is by far the most important person in the young Carlitos’ story. He didn’t want the stage-parent curse for his son so actively decided against being his coach. He's been outsourcing the coaching since Carlos began to seriously progress. I think this was an extremely critical parenting decision. He wanted to stay a father, he knew and had seen how many familial relationships had been destroyed by something similar. I'm nervous now that JCF has left but we just pray for the best I guess.
4. He had a tennis best-friend and rival call Pedro. They met when Pedro was 3yo and Carlos 2yo. One of the few times Carlos lost his tennis obsession and willingness to play was when the adults told him he had overtaken Pedro's skills and needed to move forward without his bestie. I think that gives a lot of insight into how he views opponents now and why he seems to be more focused when there's a clear target. I think he likes familiarity, be it friend or rival. This all developed when he was a child and I truly don’t think he’d be the champion he is today without a player of Jannik Sinner's calibre breathing down his neck. He is not a loner; he needs friends, he needs familiarity and he needs a rival. Jannik is all those things. The fic writers were not wrong about this lol.
Don’t feel bad for Pedro. He’s now one of the coaches at the Academy. They are still friends. In fact, Carlos's inner circle compromises of mostly old friends and colleagues. During an AO interview, he did say he even tries to be on good terms with ex-partners (which probably means he does the breaking up lmao). That says a lot about him.
5. Just for geographical reference: Carlos begins working with JCF at 15yo. The JCF Academy in Alicante is 1 hour from El Palmar, his home. He trained there because El Palmar didn’t have any indoor courts.
6. Sponsors and agents: Alfred Molina Lopez from IMG is/was his agent and manager. He was trying to sign Carlos at 11 yo, which is both crazy and concerning tbh. For the first 7 years, IMG said they did not make a profit from this partnership. I mean, profit is not an issue now, but Molina was so convinced of Carlos's potential that they pursued the family for nearly a year.
Being an up-and-coming tennis player is expensive. By the time Carlos was a teenager, it was estimated to cost $100,000 USD per season. This would have been unaffordable without sponsors and support. For reference, he now makes about $750,000 per WEEK.
7. The dessert company guy: So we established pursuing a career in tennis is so expensive. The story of how a local yoghurt and dessert company sponsored Carlos in the critical early years is both very wholesome and serendipitous: his great-uncle played doubles at the local tennis club with this philanthropist called Alfonso, owner of a dessert company called Postres Reina. Kiko Navarro was there coaching Alfonso's son. They get talking and Alfonso offers to financially support Carlos's tennis pursuit. The contract only asked that Carlos wear a patch on his shirt that stated the company name. Yeah, that's it. It was purely a philanthropic thing. It was critical for the Alcaraz family and only stopped when Carlos signed with Nike, who do not allow any other sponsors on the shirts. So next time you eat some desserts from Spain, you might be supporting a future champion.
8. The tattoo guy: Carlos' tattoo artist is an old friend from El Palmar, Joaquin Ganga. This is the guy responsible for all the milestone inkwork. If you’re wondering who Ganga is, he’s the guy who inked LeBron’s Olympic rings, Nick Kyrgios's massive Pokemon piece and did the anaesthetised Post Malone session. I’m not sure why his work on Carlos is kind of mediocre when I've seen some absolute art from that guy. Here's hoping the AO ink is decent.
9. Height: they were worried he'd grow up short. We can thank his mother, Virginia, for the height.
10. El Palmar has a population of about 24,000-29,000 people. Carlos wins his first grand slam title at the US Open, playing in Arthur Ashe Stadium, which has capacity of about 23,000. Basically his entire home town could fit in there.
This is getting long. I might write more if anyone is interested.
