‘This boy was born to be No 1’: the making of Carlos Alcaraz

I n the south-eastern corner of El Palmar, a village in south-eastern Spain, the Real Sociedad Club de Campo sits in the mountains overlooking the Murcia region’s eponymous capital city. Exactly 100 years ago, the club was founded solely as a hunters’ society, where those of privileged backgrounds would convene to shoot pigeons out of the sky. Its evolution into a handsome private tennis club has unexpectedly positioned it as the place where many people first glimpsed the player who could be the future of the men’s game.

It was on the grounds of Tiro de Pichón (Pigeon Strike), as the club is still colloquially known as today, where many people saw Carlos Alcaraz and left with the belief that they had seen something special.

“He began to play with his dad, and one day [his father] asked me to watch him. This kid, at four, five years old, was spectacular,” says Kiko Navarro, who was coached there by Alcaraz’s father, Carlos Sr, in his youth before eventually becoming one of Alcaraz Jr’s early coaches.

“I knew from very young that he was incredible,” Navarro says. “I’m not going to say that I was thinking he was going to be world No 1 but I knew that I had a really good and different player on my hands.”

Alfredo Sarria is a close friend and longtime business partner of Carlos Sr, whom he likens to a brother, and the pair run the Carlos Alcaraz Academy together at Tiro de Pichón. After first seeing a four-year-old Alcaraz in action while playing padel with his brother, Álvaro, Sarria was also enthused by his potential.

“When he was young you saw that he was very good, that he was going to be a champion,” Sarria says. “But hey, you say it with a ‘small mouth’ – you say it without completely believing everything you say.”

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