This time I am not traveling with Roberto Carretero and Albert Costa. Now, in the courtesy vehicle, I am accompanied by three Japanese journalists who speak Japanese, talk like parrots, and at one point they pause and switch to English and ask the driver:
-How was your day?
-Bufff, I’ve been very busy. I spent the whole day taking people from here to there. I brought Brad Pitt.
Silence in the car.
-Did he bring Brad Pitt? Here in this car? -asks the Japanese reporter.
– Oh, God, I’ve already talked too much – replies the driver.
And the man is already dumb and in the cage.
And the Japanese go back to Japanese, and I go back to my mental mazes.
When I ask Carlos Alcaraz (20) how he takes all this fame, not being able to move freely around the world, the Murcian answers:
– I’m doing well. I’m a normal person, an ordinary guy, so I’m not going to ban myself from doing the things I do. Maybe I go slower in my stuff, I do everything a little more patiently, I stop for photos.
– Can you be patient?
– What I do is turn it upside down. I consider that the people who ask for my photo are also behind the screen, encouraging and supporting me. And I need affection and energy to win these kinds of matches. So, when I stop and talk to them, I do it with all the affection in the world. And, if I can, in Murcia I go out and walk around the center, and no problem.
-Is this possible?
– Well, I need more time to get to the places. But nothing changes.
-And if he goes on vacation, does he choose somewhere, already remote, where he won’t be recognized?
– Well, I do. I’m looking for a quieter area, because the season is very long and you need to disconnect.
Carlos Alcaraz has welcomed La Vanguardia to his home, three minutes’ walk from the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The place is a two-storey building where overcrowding reigns. The Alcaraz team is collecting. Juan Carlos Ferrero, the coach, slaps our hands one after the other while looking us in the eyes, and Jaime (11), the younger brother of the talent, throws in the basket in the yard.
– Well done, friends, come back next year, we’ll bring you luck – shouts the neighbor, behind the wheel of the Mercedes.
When he goes out to run errands, the man says goodbye to Carlos Alcaraz, the father.
On the kitchen island, there are croissants, juices, coffee and two boxes of Iberian ham, which are supposed to come from Spain.
On the table in the spacious dining room, a miscellany of English covers. “Alcaraz takes Djokovic’s Wimbledon crown”, says The Times. “Djokovic denied”, The Guardian.
The florist carries a gigantic bouquet. The vase weighs like an eternity.
-Between this and the network of the track, I don’t know how we will take the bouquet, the truth – says Carlos Alcaraz, the father.
Li asked Carlos Alcaraz, the fill, the genius of tennis, the nou rei of Wimbledon:
-Have you talked to Nadal yet?
– Well, he sent me a message congratulating me after the game. He congratulated me. I couldn’t have a smoother conversation with him, but the messages are appreciated.
-During the tournament, in the moments of pressure that accompany a two-week journey, do you communicate with Nadal? Does he ask you for advice?
– The truth is, no. I would love to, but he is with his life. I would love to message him and ask him things, but he has his life, with his family and his son. I won’t say I know how he feels when others message him all the time, but I’d rather not bother him. I would love to be in more contact with him and talk to him more often.
Jaime’s ball bounces into the distance. The boy plays with the reporters, who entertain themselves at 21 while they wait their turn.
– Well done, champion – he wavers to a colleague on the radio.
He just defeated her.
The father of the family remembers that the other son, the legendary Carlitos, used to do the same as a child at the Campo Múrcia Tennis Club, a stone’s throw from his house.
– He was like this all day, the boy on the front – says the father.
-Are you connected to the world? Do you know what a bottle of milk from the supermarket is worth? – I ask the tennis player.
-Esclar, when I have days off and I go to a friend’s house for dinner, I propose: “Let’s go to the supermarket and buy some rice and hamburgers and make them at home?”. The others get up and tell me to stay, but I insist: “Hey, I’m coming with you, I want things to be natural”.
– Won’t you get away from the world? Won’t he fly in a private jet while others carry his bags?
– There are things that are moving forward. I have the opportunity to travel from time to time by private plane, flights with my people. But sometimes I’m embarrassed to put myself in situations where they carry my suitcase, when I can carry it myself. Or the players I see the coach taking the racket to… Until recently, I used to take the rackets to the stringer myself and pick them up. These details make a humble, down-to-earth person.
– It won’t be easy. Djokovic said of you that you have the best of all three worlds of the Big Three. How do you see it?
-I guess I have some of the mental strength and level of Nadal’s defenses. Mentally, I think he is much better than anyone, myself included. And Federer’s strokes, the fact of going to the net and making a volley, the creativity. And Djokovic’s physical level, his elasticity, the way he slides…
