Coach Juan Carlos Ferrero reveals hearing all the comparisons to Rafael Nadal “was super heavy” on Carlos Alcaraz’s back. In early 2022, Alcaraz started drawing more and more comparisons to his idol Nadal. But fortunately for Alcaraz, he was able to remain focused on tennis and accomplish his two biggest goals.
Last March, Alcaraz became a Masters champion after winning Miami at the age of 18. In the remainder of 2022, Alcaraz won one more Masters title – became a Grand Slam champion at the Us Open – reached the world No 1 spot.
Coach Ferrero: The comparisons to Nadal were super heavy on Alcaraz’s back
“You can say that you need to take the best examples available to add things to your game, absolutely. Federer’s movement, Nadal’s mentality and so on.
We do try to take details from players when we think they are super good, to add them to our game. But you know, Carlos had to hear in the past that he was the new Nadal, etc. It was super heavy on his back. In a sense we were so proud, yes, that people think that, but it was not easy for him and me to hear that all the time.
The only thing I can tell you is that he thinks super big. He does think super big. A lot of journalists ask me if he can win 22 Grand Slams. I don’t know. What I know is that he is able to do big things for tennis. Let him play and try.
If he wins the second, we’ll ask him when will be the third. It will be a great pressure all the time. So can he do like the others did? I don’t know,” Ferrero told Tennis Majors. After winning the US Open for his first Grand Slam title, Alcaraz was asked about the chances of one day reaching Nadal’s Grand Slam title number.
In his answer, Alcaraz simply said he was too far away from Nadal’s 22 Grand Slams to be talking about that at this stage of his career.
