I’m speeding off the tube at Southfields.
Juan Carlos Ferrero has summoned us first thing in the morning at Wimbledon, he has summoned us to talk about his pupil, Carlos Alcaraz, and his final this Sunday against Novak Djokovic, and for that reason I am just on time and on the wrong foot.
I am accelerating and I stumble going up the stairs, and in my trip I grab the foot of the Japanese tourist who is two steps ahead (I suspect that the woman is coming to see Tokito Oda, a magnificent Paralympic tennis player who is playing the doubles final and the semi-single).
We both fall, the Japanese girl and I, and she looks at me in astonishment and her companion looks at me annoyed:
-What the fuck?
And I apologize and curse myself, “you can’t be more stupid.”
And then I check that everything is fine, especially the foot and the knee of the Japanese, and everything is fine, thank God.
And then I go fast, even faster, to plunge into the traditional two-kilometre run from Southfields to Wimbledon, and this time I go without tasting the spectacle of the terraced houses and the luscious green meadows, I go cursing my stupidity (and laughing). in part, that too: nothing has happened here), I’m just on time.
(…)
Juan Carlos Ferrero (43) brings rest, the pause of someone who has seen the world and has been here before.
In his record as a tennis player, he sports a Roland Garros title (2003), and also the number 1 he had held that same year.
And as a coach, he has been sponsoring Carlos Alcaraz for some time, number 1 as he had been, and also winner of a Grand Slam (the US Open last year), and we will see what fate has in store for him this Sunday.
Calmly, Ferrero sits in room 5 of the Media Theater and contemplates the Spanish chroniclers, almost a dozen of them.
Recorders in front of the technician.
Come on, shoot.
You are asked:
-You have been number 1 and have played Grand Slam finals. Do you use your experience to help Alcaraz?
-I transmit situations that can happen to him on the track. How to play against the rival and manage the pressure, what to do today to be calmer. But Alcaraz is a tennis player already trained and has grown a lot, and in the end what happens will be just one more step in his growth process.
For today, the team has projected a quiet day, with a gym session and isolation from the outside.
With the mobile well away and turned off.
-Well, that’s what we tried, that Alcaraz leave the mobile. I don’t know if we will succeed, but I have recommended it to him. He can’t go around looking at what they say all the time, that if this is good and he is too, that if he wins the first set, this or that will happen… That doesn’t help.
-Djokovic often says that facing Nadal at Roland Garros is the greatest sporting challenge in the world. Is facing Djokovic at Wimbledon also the biggest sporting challenge in the world?
-If we make the giant bigger, it will be impossible to beat him. Forget about the statistics. Djokovic has two arms and two legs. Let’s not think about history, numbers and everything else.
(Djokovic is chasing his eighth London title, as many as Roger Federer, and his 24th Grand Slam title, as many as Margaret Court.)
-And what will be the formula to defeat the Serbian?
-The formula remains between us, I will not say it now because that would strengthen Djokovic more. But Alcaraz has already beaten him once, let’s not forget that (it had happened at the Mutua Madrid Open last year; both are 1-1 head-to-head).
In the end, when we insist, Ferrero expands on the answer.
He says that both, Djokovic and Alcaraz, are good players from the back of the court, although he adds that the Murcian is looking for something more from the net and the dynamism of the point, and that the insistence on that dynamism could take the Serb out of rhythm.
-And what have you learned from what happened at the last Roland Garros?
(When facing Djokovic in the semifinal, Alcaraz had locked up and suffered muscle cramps.)
-When you face someone over and over again, you learn to manage the times. Favoritism is for Djokovic, and that suits Alcaraz, it allows him to be calmer. The important thing is that he plays fluently as he has done throughout the tournament, except against Rune, when he came out a little more tense.
And how do they do that?
-Finding yourself, in the problems that you can generate for the other, in how to squeeze their weaknesses. Carlos’ options will depend on Carlos’ level.
