In the cradle of Carlos Alcaraz: "In the patio he ate some sandwiches like his forearm"

• Report Nadal and Alcaraz, so alike, so different: "Technically, I have the feeling that he is better than Rafa at his age"

• Future Until when will Carlos Alcaraz be number 1?

  Everything is in his favor for a long reign

• Opinion Alcaraz, a Sun surrounded by still small satellites

Of the four number 1s in Spanish tennis,

is the only one who was born in a district.

There is no neighbor who does not know the family of the new hero, but life on the streets passes with the same calm as that shown by the winner of the US Open off the track.

has 24,174 inhabitants

and, among them, the best tennis player of the moment, but he is only remembered by a 400-meter mural with his image on the Mota Reguerón road, one of the main entrances to the town, to the Calle Mayor that forms the backbone of his life .

It was the tribute paid by the Murcia City Council last May and the only image of the player that there is, at the moment, in shops and public places.

This district of

, in the middle of the orchard, next to the port of La Cadena, has been caught off guard by the success of

and

, grandson of another Carlos, a draftsman in the 60s, and Paquita, who ran the 2000 Bookstore A normal family, well known, but still living on the third floor of a building on Calle Pintor Muñoz Barberán, with an almost prescient name: Coloseum II, a mixture of Coloso and Coliseum, what Carlitos is and what he turns the Tennis courts.

Nothing hangs from the Alcaraz home to indicate that this is where the tennis star lives.

A couple of neighbors do have the flag of Murcia placed with the motto 'Vamos Carlitos'.

His balcony, without a trace.

Only his maternal grandmother left the house very early yesterday,

, who with a Sevillian accent that betrays her origin, recalled the "suffering of the early morning" and "the cloud" in which the family lived, with deep roots that support them in the town... and in sensible life.

Carlitos doesn't lose his head because no one around him does.

Effort on the track... and in class

A few meters from there, crossing the Plaza de la Democracia where the final was followed on a giant screen, is the Marqués de los Vélez Secondary School.

," says the secretary of the center proudly.

There are few students, because the course starts on Wednesday, but nothing else is discussed.

“Someday I have found teachers with bags under their eyes because they have stayed to see him in a tournament,” adds

, the center's director, as he walks through a corridor full of fringes from former students.

There is Carlos with a blue scholarship surrounded by his classmates from 4th ESO four days ago, in the 2018/19 academic year.

The border of Carlos Alcaraz and his ESO classmates from IES Marqués de los Vélez.SONIA MUÑOZARABA PRESS

«In this same office I have had meetings with his father to see how

so that he could make them compatible with tennis.

Sometimes he had to leave mid-morning to train, but he responded and he was getting everything even though he already went to Villena several times a week », explains the teacher.

«For the

we applied to be able to make a curricular adaptation for being a high-performance athlete, but with the old law it was only allowed for higher education in music, dance or students with special needs.

Perhaps because it is

», reflects and values ​​Soto.

Calls from Mexico

There is no one who does not define Carlos as an "absolutely normal boy, who until four days ago went with his friends to spend time in the park."

That when he was not in the

, a sports and social club behind the Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital founded in 1923.

Its history tells that it was first a pigeon shooting club for the

, founded by

, son of the inventor of the autogyro.

When it was decided to change the shotguns for tennis rackets, Carlos's paternal grandfather, the one with

-"head, heart and balls"-, did not hesitate to sign up.

Carlitos' father grew up there, who bordered on professionalism and became the 42nd in Spain, junior runner-up and champion of Murcia, but also his grandson.

The curious thing is that

.

Only the Tennis School is called Carlos Alcaraz, "and it is because of his father, who is the director."

"But

.

People have wanted to come from Mexico, because Carlos has a lot of pull there.

But this is only his club », explains

, who was his first coach.

Nothing has changed despite the fact that, since 2019, this venue is the birthplace of a world star.

Carlitos, with his first coach, Kiko Navarro.KN

There he is still Carlitos the times that happens.

Santos, the club's maintenance manager for the last 12 years, remembers how he grew up on clay.

«He used to see his brother Álvaro and a backpack with two feet in the corridors of the slopes and you said, there goes Carlitos.

», He explains.

growth test

At the age of four, Carlos's father, already the director of the school, made the decision not to train his son directly and to leave him in the hands of Navarro, first together with Carlos Santos, and then alone.

«At that age he was already capable of hitting when others couldn't even with the racket.

He had something special, but we still

and height in professional tennis is important.

So we did a growth test and

, who is still his doctor, nailed it: 1.80 with a margin of error of five centimeters, that he has reached them », he relates.

Alcaraz bites a trophy like Rafa Nadal won in his academy.KN

For Kiko, the head of Carlitos' father was vital.

"He is a coach and was interested in everything, but always from the background and trusting others, defining that they did not talk about tennis between them."

"Without that environment, he would not be number 1 at 19 years old."

With Navarro, Carlitos traveled to children's tournaments with the help of the businessman and owner of

, Alfonso López Rueda, and even participated in the recording of

.

«From Carlos were the blows of the Mario Bros character that he challenged against Nadal.

There were two days in Barcelona of which we were only five hours with Rafa, but Carlitos was happy », he recalls.

Then came the control of

, "so that he would not spend hours hooked", the conversations about girls and a complicity that has led them to be very close friends.

But El Palmar was already too small.

«

.

I uploaded it two or three times a week, he works there with Ferrero and me and then I had to tell his father everything, with technical details », he smiles.

Once again the vision of the father was decisive, in March 2020. «I remember that Carlitos and I were returning from Turkey, where we had seen the news of the death of Kobe Bryan and the virus from China without even being aware of what it was.

When we landed, his father picked me up and told me: 'take him to Villena, this is going to get ugly'.

Thanks to that sharpness, Carlitos passed the confinement without giving up his preparation, although it cost us, it was a very cool year, where we had

for the Count of Godó and for other tournaments that made us excited ».

Kiko Navarro, on the hard court of the Real Sociedad Club de Campo de Murcia.KN

In the blink of an eye, Carlitos had left El Palmar's control forever to become a world star.

Do you still play when he comes here? No, we just chat.

I no longer have the level to rally with him (smiles).

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