Carlos Alcaraz: Heading into the end of the season with a broad chest and big goals
Carlos Alcaraz is in the finals of the Davis Cup with Spain. For the last few months of the 2022 season, the 19-year-old has big plans, and not just in the team fight.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Sep 19, 2022, 10:58 am
Carlos Alcaraz didn't take too long to let the greatest success of his still young career sink in. Instead of taking a break after the triumph at the US Open - and the associated rise to number one in the tennis world - the 19-year-old returned to Valencia a few days later. Namely in the Davis Cup for his home country Spain.
Although the record of one win and one defeat - without detracting from the performance of Felix Auger-Aliassime, who showed great tennis against Alcaraz - was not quite what the youngster wanted, Alcaraz drew a positive balance: "On Friday against Auger- Aliasssime I only had one day of preparation, but today with this extra preparation I was able to deal with the situation better.I'm happy with my performance yesterday and today, but it's clear that I need a little more time to recover improve,"said Alcaraz after moving into the Davis Cup finals.
Alcaraz doesn't feel any pressure
Now the youngster, who 'loves' playing for Spain, has big plans for the final weeks of the 2022 season, as the latter underlined: "Now I still have a few tournaments to go before the end of the season but it's clear that one of my big goals is to win the ATP Finals and also the Davis Cup," said the Spaniard. "Ending the year as world no. 1 would be nice too. Once I've gotten that far I want to work on staying up there for as long as possible."
The fact that Alcaraz, as the new number one, is the big hunted does not seem to affect the Iberian, as he explained. At least not yet. "I didn't feel any pressure. I heard Medvedev say he felt the pressure of being number 1, that he thought it would be easier. In my case, maybe it's because I played Davis Cup and had the warmth of all the people behind me, I wasn't playing alone so it seemed easier for me."