Carlos Australian Open“>Alcaraz, listening to the advice of his team, decided not to attend the first two tournaments of the year in order to to extend the preseason to five weeks.
“We gave up playing the first two tournaments to have five weeks of preparation. Carlos is still growing physically and it was ideal, because the year ended so late and how we ended it, with the coronavirus infection. The first two weeks we only did physical and then we started with tennis“, explains Juan Carlos Ferrero.
Alcaraz recognized before the start of the Australian Open, his first event this season, that his goal “is to finish in the ‘top15‘ and fight to be in the ATP finals, which is difficult but not impossible“. That would mean finishing among the top eight rackets on the circuit.
the pupil of John Charles Ferrero You already know what it is to manage among the elite. Of the seven direct clashes with the top ten they have won three times: Stefanos Tsitsipas (3), Matteo Berrettini (7) and Jannik Sinner (9).
Precisely Berrettini will be the rival of the tennis player from El Palmar on Friday for a place in the round of 16. “He already showed his level at the end of the year and that he can beat those at the top. The important thing is to have regularity with everyone and not just with the best”, continues Ferrero, who accompanies him in Melbourne together with the physiotherapist Sergio Hernndez and his agent at IMG Albert Molina.
Carlos traveled to the capital of Victoria on January 8, with a connecting flight in Abu Dhabi, to have time to adjust to the courts, the balls and the heat of the Australian summer.
Training with Djokovic
He had planned to train with Novak Djokovic the week before the Open, but the initial plans changed with the arrest of the world number one, who was deported last Sunday to Europe and now rests in his native Serbia.
“I like how Andrey Rublev trains“, says Alcaraz. Well, with the Russian that the Murcian practiced, in addition to his compatriot Carlos Taberner before his brilliant debut with the Chilean Alejandro Tabilo.
The only one with a sleeveless elastic from Nike
He was amazed by his marked muscles, which stand out even more by the sleeveless shirt of the Nike brand that only he wears in his matches in Australia.
The situation of the past Roland Garros is repeated, where Carlos and the American Frances Tiafoe were chosen by the brand of the cane to wear that kit.
This Wednesday, after defeating Dusan Lajovic 6-2, 6-1 and 7-5, number 39 on the lists, he has achieved his best result in the first major on the calendar.
The turning point will be marked by the next opponent. Berrettini, finalist of the last Wimbledon, already knows how the Murcian spends them. In October, in the quarterfinals of the Vienna Open 500, he was his executioner 6-1, 6-7(2) and 7-6(5).
Rafael Nadal is full of praise for his compatriot: “He is young, hardworking and it is difficult for things to go wrong for him. Last year he made a very important jump in the classification and in the level. We will see day by day where his potential. I know he has a chance of winning here.”
A year ago, in Melbourne, it was the first time the two exchanged blows in training. Then they will face each other in the second round of the Mutua Madrid Open. This Carlos is another.
At 18 years and 270 days old, Carlos is the youngest in the third round of the Australian Open since Bernard Tomic in the 2011 edition.
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