Carlos I of El Palmar: "We are going to build some tennis courts that will bear his name"

It was a night to be out in the fresh air, with the neighbors, to encourage

(with a deaf voice) that youth who has carried the name of El Palmar all over the world.

Years ago, this district of Murcia was known for its two hospitals, the Virgen de la Arrixaca and the psychiatric hospital.

'To be there to send you to El Palmar' was to live out of sanity.

Today this quiet town in the Murcian orchard can only be associated with Carlos Alcaraz, the world tennis phenomenon who at the age of 19 has climbed by force of "head, heart and balls" to number 1 in the world.

More than 2,000 of his neighbors came to spend the early morning in the Plaza de la Democracia, next to the Marqués de a Vélez institute, where Carlos fought for ESO and Bachiller with as much effort as the match against

.

In Murcia they are partying.

On Tuesday they will make a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of La Fuensanta but first they had to go to the giant screen where the countryman, the precocious hero was about to touch the sky.

Antony's blows

That

did and his family, street neighbors of the Alcaraz family.

They were in charge of lifting the staff from their seats, even when he had to clench his fists and teeth in a third set that made him fear the worst.

They began to recognize their Carlitos in the first smile he let slip at 4-4 in the third set.

Antonio took his black plastic basket to pick melons and did not stop hitting it with the stick of a hoe, "stop that, we're from the garden, posh."

His blows gave strength to the boy who lives on the back street "whom we have known since we were children and who has gone to school with our children."

There were no relatives of Carlos among those present, they were suffering in New York, including his famous grandfather, but everyone who was there was one big family.

The first,

, who could barely contain his nerves.

"We knew that she would go far, but we did not expect it to be so soon," she confessed before seeing her pupil suffer.

her schoolmates

Perhaps the energy came from his friends, from

and

, who went to school with him, who always follow him, but for a while they were more aware of the "excessive outfits" of the girls in Ruud's box.

At each point, for the conversation to complain, and they did too much, but also to celebrate each "Come on" from Carlos with a raised fist.

Because that is what the towns are, the place where the son of

and

is protected and felt by everyone as their own.

As Carlitos took tennis out of him, the mayor of Murcia, J

, was counting the times Murcia and El Palmar played on the big screen, while chewing that a mural was perhaps no longer enough.

"We are going to build some tennis courts that, of course, will bear his name. But at this rate, we will have to weigh more things," admits the mayor, who today fired another illustrious Murcian, Alejandro Valverde, but already has a successor in the reign of Murcian sport.

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