The day before the biggest match of his young life, Carlos Alcaraz received a surprise.
Juan Carlos Ferrero, Alcaraz’s coach and a former world No 1, has been ever present at the teenager’s side as he has taken his first steps in the professional game. But a fortnight ago, Ferrero flew home from the US following the unexpected death of his father, Eduardo.
Alcaraz, who had just suffered a narrow defeat to compatriot Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells, continued to excel in his mentor’s absence. Picking up from where he left off in the California desert, the Spaniard defeated third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to the semi-finals, and then went one better by taking down Hubert Hurkacz, the defending champion.
Yet even in that moment of triumph, with a place booked in the first Masters 1000 final of his fledgling career, Ferrero remained uppermost in the 18-year-old’s thoughts. “It is for you, Juanki,” he scrawled on a TV camera. “This victory is yours.”
The message did not fall on deaf ears. On Saturday afternoon, Alcaraz was lounging on a sofa at his hotel when Ferrero unexpectedly came bounding up behind him. Barely able to believe his eyes, the teenager sprang up and embraced him, the pair’s mutual delight plain to see. Twenty-four hours later there would be a reprise of that hug in the rather more public setting of the Miami Open’s stadium court, where tears streamed down Ferrero’s face following the 7-5, 6-4 victory over Casper Ruud that made Alcaraz the youngest champion in the event’s history.
In setting that record, the teenager eclipses Novak Djokovic, who won the tournament in 2007 at the age of 19. It is unlikely to be the last time Alcaraz passes such a milestone, and the significance of the moment was lost on no one. Nadal tweeted his congratulations on what he called a “historical triumph”. After the king of clay came the king of Spain, as Alcaraz fielded a congratulatory call from Felipe VI of Spain. But it was another compatriot, Spanish No 1 Paula Badosa, who perhaps summed it up best. “Spain cannot have a better heir than you,” she wrote. “Thank you for those values and for that tennis that we constantly enjoy. You were born to shine.”
Badosa was spot on. At a time when the men’s game is being dragged through the mud on an almost weekly basis by the racket-smashing tantrums of its star performers, it is hard to put a price on the emergence of a champion like Alcaraz. Faced with the most significant triumph of his life, his first thought was not for himself or what it meant for his career, but for the grief-stricken mentor who has been at his side since he was 15. It spoke of a humility and sense of perspective beyond his years.
There was a final tribute to Ferrero’s father at the end of it, Alcaraz writing on a camera: “Eduardo, always with us.” Whether on the court or off it, Alcaraz is a class act.
“Juan Carlos is a very important person for me,” explained Alcaraz. “On the professional side, on the personal side, he has helped me a lot. When we are together, we will talk about everything in life, everything in our sport, about football as well. I mean, yeah, Juan Carlos, I consider him a coach and a friend as well. So I can talk to him about everything.”
On the court, it is Alcaraz’s tennis that does the talking. Ruud described his opponent beforehand as a big name with a big game. He would know. In the only previous meeting between the two, a quarter-final at the Andalucia Open last year, Ruud won just two of the first 15 points as Alcaraz ran out a 6-2, 6-4 winner. Ruud had promised things would be different this time, and he was as good as his word. Here it was the Norwegian who rattled through the first three games, the 23-year-old capitalising on some uncharacteristic forehand errors from Alcaraz to snatch an early break.
“In the beginning he did some sloppy mistakes that we don’t see too often from him,” said Ruud, the sixth seed. “I started off great. I was feeling good. I was getting on court confident that I would have a good start, and I did. So everything went well in the beginning.”
It would not last. First Alcaraz got mad, then he got even. The anger came in the form of a 101mph forehand winner that spoke of pure frustration. The getting even was a more considered and gradual affair. It began with a signature drop shot winner that got Alcaraz on the scoreboard and the crowd on their feet. They had come to see the next big thing, the man of the moment, and here was a first sign that he had belatedly entered the building.
More was to come from the Spaniard. He threatened in the sixth game, earning his first break point as Ruud left a floating sliced forehand only to see it drop inside the baseline. Ruud survived on that occasion, capitalising on a missed volley by Alcaraz to see out the game with some strong serving. But an error-strewn game at 4-2 let the Spaniard back in, and from there Alcaraz grew in stature. At 5-5, he rifled an astonishing crosscourt forehand past Ruud at 102mph. This time, though, it was a shot born of belief rather than exasperation. Alcaraz was on his way.
Ruud threatened to stall his rival’s progress when he fashioned a break point as Alcaraz served for the set, but some dexterous net play from the Spaniard dug him out of trouble, as was often the case at key moments in the contest.
“Serve and volley was a key for me in this match,” said Alcaraz, who won all 11 of the points on which he followed his delivery into the net. “I did a lot, and I think that I won almost 100% of those points.”
Ruud, who was also contesting his first final at this level, was broken again at the start of the second set, Alcaraz pulling him from one corner to the other before drawing him in with a drop shot and sealing the game with a wrong-footing lob. Another break soon followed and, although Ruud pulled one back, by the end he was struggling and needed treatment on his hip.
Only Michael Chang and Nadal have claimed a Masters title at a younger age, and Alcaraz will now be widely viewed as a serious contender for Roland Garros. His two previous tournament wins came on clay, but Ferrero counsels patience.
“Let him flow,” said Ferrero. “I think the goals and our thoughts about what’s gonna be and what he can reach, now it’s very difficult to say. Let him play.”
Increasingly, his opponents have little choice in the matter.