Carlos Alcaraz’s meteoric rise in 2022 has understandably ignited tennis passions, but he’s not Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic 2.0. At least not yet.
Carlos Alcaraz is an exciting tennis player. There is no doubt about it. The Spanish teenager is brimming with potential. He’s fast and agile. He has proven to be a fearless competitor, and there is that enviable, tantalizing return game. There are slam titles in his probably not-too-distant future.
This 19-year-old Spaniard has accomplished in a few months what nobody else has since 2004; he has supplied an actual face to the future of men’s tennis that isn’t Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, or Roger Federer’s. Except for Nadal’s countless injuries and the occasional Djokovic mental walkabout when he seems to forget how to play tennis, there hasn’t truly been a moment when the tennis community has collectively announced, “This is it! A changing of the guard!” and believed it.
Until now.
But (you knew there had to be a “but” in there, right?), we’ve quite gotten ahead of ourselves. You want to call Carlitos Alcaraz exciting? You betcha! Count me in. And as much as I’ve been a proponent for enjoying the never-seen-before-and-never-will-again collective dominance of the Big Three while we still can, I’ll even stipulate that men’s tennis has needed Carlos Alcaraz or a player like him for a while.
The onslaught of Alcaraz hype this week, though? It’s flat-out absurd.
First, there’s this from TennisTV, the subscription streaming service of the ATP:
And Babolat, the manufacturer that has supplied Nadal with rackets since he burst onto the scene in 2004:
And perhaps most egregious of all, this quote from Martina Navratilova:
No. I’m sorry. Just…no. After a couple of months of winning, I’m supposed to just…what? Admit that Carlitos Alcaraz is:
- A Federer/Nadal/Djokovic version 2.0
- The new King of Clay
- An UPGRADED version of Novak Djokovic
He might be those things one day. I’ve been a tennis fan long enough to remember Pete Sampras in his heyday and when Federer broke his record of 14 slam titles back in 2009. In the 90s and early naughts, 14 was thought to be untouchable. We know now that each of the Big Three shattered it…and Djokovic and Nadal have the DOUBLE career Grand Slam.
So…yeah. Nothing is impossible. But come on, now.
Forget the fact that the dude has zero slam titles, because I have no doubt that he will rectify that in short order. Forget that Nadal — playing with a broken rib — beat him just a month and a half ago. What this week’s hyperbolic nonsense demonstrates is a laughable example of recency bias (placing more importance on recent rather than historical events) coupled with the scarcity of legitimate heirs apparent in men’s tennis.
We’ve forgotten just how extraordinary the Big Three are because they made what they’ve done seem normal. Nadal has been in the top 10 for 17 years. SEVENTEEN years. Djokovic was a single win away from a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2021. That’s not normal. I can’t stress enough just how not normal those things are. But we’ve watched them do it for so long, the narrative has become “well OF COURSE they’re still winning. Because that’s what they do.”
I don’t know what Alcaraz’s legacy will be, but I can assure you this: his place in tennis will not be singularly decided by the fact that he has a “better ball out wide” than Djokovic does. The quality of a player’s strokes alone are only part of the equation.
His legacy will be tangled with his tenacity, his ability to evolve, his resolve, and his susceptibility to injury. It will be about his movement, his resilience, his determination (or lack thereof) to keep going when he’s suffering mentally, emotionally, and physically.
It’ll be down to the quality of his opponents and his eventual ability to handle worldwide fame. Oh — and consistency. These things are nothing less than Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer have brought to the table for the last 18 years, and they will be required of any player looking to surpass them.
Is Carlos Alcaraz that player? I have no idea; nor does anyone else. It’s possible nobody is and never will be. So let’s at least try for a dash of perspective with our large helping of enthusiasm.
Just a suggestion: is it possible to disarm the identity stealing poster by using avatars, like my cat behind the curtain? He can steal our names, but he cannot use our avatars…
I also think that Alcaraz may have done the right thing, when he withdrew from the Italian Open. He has played a lot of tennis lately, and RG is the physically most demanding slam. The only problem may be that the conditions in Rome are very similar to the conditions in Paris, and therefore the tournament is a good preparation. But if Alcaraz will survive the first few rounds in Paris, he will probably do just fine.
We could also state our favourite players as code word.
For example,if I say Rafa there’s a fair chance I’m being impersonated ..
There are too many rafans on here for that to work!
It’s very clearly anonymous doing the impersonating. He first impersonated me in early January and his impersonations of me involve pro right wing comments including one out of the blue praising Putin. I do find this very objectionable.
Also, he really really goes insane when Cheryl blogs. The first time he did this in an insane way was her piece just after Rafa won the AO.
It’s obvious he hates women at a level which is borderline psychotic. I, for one, am sick of listing to it. It’s hate speech.
Amy, I agree that this is more than just a nuisance when he starts posting political ravings under assumed names! We know each other well enough but newcomers don’t and they cannot see that it is not us. I really think that something should be done about this!
Exactly littlefoot! Tennis talk is one thing but posting justifications for Putin’s murderous psychopathic violence under my name is simply not acceptable. I find it hard to believe anyone would think I wrote this given everyone knows I hate Trump and Putin but it’s also an attempt to get us to turn on each other.
Also, I don’t think his misogynist targeting of Cheryl’s blogs with repellent comments is acceptable.
Amy, I fully agree! This should really be stopped!
Ha, ha Big Al, I am not sure if that would work. This imposter probably knows who our favorite players are and he could adapt 😉 However, he really doesn’t seem to like Rafa, and I cannot imagine that he would claim that Rafa is his favorite player 😁😁😁
But I agree – If you would suddenly claim to be a rafafan, I would smell a rat! He is also not very adept at imitating our various styles. So far I could spot the fake comments fairly easily. But it is a nuisance. It has been mostly civil here – no matter, whom we like. But he seems to enjoy to goad us.
Oh yes! I think we would all catch on to that!
I have to believe they can get rid of this troll. Even though we can see that it’s not the regular posters because of the nastiness of these posts, it still is concerning to put up with this idiocy.
Hi NNY, so you have an avatar, too! The imposter cannot steal your picture. if we see your avatar, we know that it is really you 😀
littlefoot,
I forgot all about it! Yes I do! So you are saying that this troll can’t post under my name?
NNY, unfortunately he still can use your name – but if you start to use your avatar for all of your future comments, we at least know, that it is really you and not an imposter. I really do not think, that he can steal our pictures, although he might be able to find your picture somewhere in the internet. But my picture is private. It is a picture of my cat Dylan hiding behind a curtain. I really do not think that it can be usurped easily.
But the best solution would be to ask Ricky to block this imposter!
It’s quite simple to stop these impersonations. You already need to enter an e-mail address, which is not visible to others. It can be used to validate the Name. You should always have to use the same Email for the Name, it’s that easy.
However, things were just fine until some people decided to troll this site.
Cristian, unfortunately it’s very easy here to create a new account under the same name but with a different email address. As soon as the first comment has been moderated, it’s valid. I have actually done this for a while because I had problems with my usual email address.
Can you block someone based on their internet data? Everyone has their own ip number..
Yes, that should be possible! Most sites which need to ban people now and then, block the IP-number. Our imposter would need to put far more energy into his endeavor in order to circumvent this.
I think the ip number can be blocked. When this person does it, then they should block the ip number.
Make it harder for this loser to engage in this despicable behavior. We know who the regulars are, but I can understand why they would be offended having their named used to say things that they do. Nit believe. It’s upsetting.
I agree, NNY! We have known each other over many years, and we know more or less what to expect. But there may be newcomers who could be fooled. And Cheryl writes excellent articles. She doesn’t deserve to be ridiculed by a mysogenist trouble maker who hides behind assumed names. And Ricky’s site doesn’t deserve this, either!
Does anyone know if this “Anonymous” who uses the names of other posters now, is someone we know and who started to use different strategies because we had started to ignore him? I have a few ideas. But I was not here regularly enough in the last two years.
This troll has been here for a while under the name Anonymous. Then posts came up Anonymous saying different things to confuse us. Now it has progressed to this nut taking on the names of regulars here and posting the opposite of what they would think or say. I know that Amy’s name was used to make some particularly offensive comments. We have never had a troll go to these lengths before.
I have a few ideas as to who it could be. The appropriate thing is for Ricky to ban this person. They are creating a very toxic environment. This is supposed to be a nice way to talk all things tennis for those of us who love this sport. Now it’s been turned into a violation of the members whose names are being used to say highly offensive things.
I think there are actually 2 people who have been creating trouble but anonymous is the one doing it right now. It’s not just taking over other people’s identities, he also was spamming the site with endless names all of which were obviously him.
I haven’t been commenting recently for work reasons and after today I may well not be back until the RG draw so anyone posting weird stuff under my name is him.
As I said, I particularly dislike his attempts to destroy the comments section on Cheryl’s blog.
We’ll miss you while you’re working hard so you can enjoy RG. We can tell when it’s YOU and when it’s some stupid imposter, don’t worry!
I also find the misogynistic comments on Cheryl’s blog extremely offensive.
I wasn’t sure if it was one or two people doing this. But I think I know where it’s coming from.
Fortunately, we know each other very well. If there are new people here, that could be a problem. But usually someone calls out these trash posts for what they are. We can protect each other by going on the record and making sure that everyone knows that it’s a troll.
I called out the posts pretending to be Sanju.
Yes, NNY, I think that all regulars are able to detect the offensive comments, and when we see such fraudulent posts, we should point it out.
When I scanned this thread today I noticed immediately that something was totally off. And we know that none of us “oldtimers” would insult Cheryl or other female posters. Come to think about it, our biggest disagreements seems to be about who our favorite tennis players are. Pretty benign, if you think about it 😉 It would be a pity if this overall nice atmosphere would be destroyed by an anonymous clown who doesn’t seem to have anything more worthwhile to occupy himself with!