CNN
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If an 18th birthday is supposed to be a momentous, coming-of-age occasion, then Carlos Alcaraz got the memo. In front of a home crowd in Madrid, the then-up-and-coming tennis star braced himself to face one of the game’s great players for the first time.
Alcaraz had spent his whole childhood idolizing Rafael Nadal. To face the legendary Spaniard on his favored clay surface produced a cocktail of emotions: excitement, exhilaration, but also deep-seated terror.
“I was so scared,” Alcaraz has since said about that moment. “I couldn’t play. His presence, the atmosphere that you feel – it’s unbelievable.”
For Nadal’s camp, those nerves were plain to see. Carlos Moyá, the long-time former coach to the 22-time grand slam singles champion, could sense it from the stands – a young player suddenly overawed and overwhelmed by his opponent.
Yet despite the lopsided scoreline – Nadal romped to a 6-1, 6-2 victory on the Madrid clay – Moyá was also impressed by the young Spaniard on the other side of the net.
“You could see that he was special,” the former world No. 1 tells CNN Sports. “He had all the shots … drop shots or volleys or running, it was great to watch.”
Four years on from that match, Alcaraz’s raw talent has come to fruition. He’s now a four-time grand slam champion and the favorite to defend his French Open title when the tournament gets underway on Sunday – an event that Nadal has dominated for the past two decades.
Though seeded second behind Italy’s Jannik Sinner, who is making a return from a doping suspension, Alcaraz defeated his rival in the final of the Italian Open last week. Prior to that, he won the Monto-Carlo Masters and reached the final of the Barcelona Open before losing to Holger Rune.
When he returns to Roland Garros to face veteran Japanese player Kei Nishikori in the first round, Alcaraz will do so having won 15 of his 16 clay-court matches this season.
“He is 22, so he has a bright present and bright future ahead of him, and he has all the tools to keep winning slams,” says Moyá, adding: “You don’t know what can happen in five years, eight, 10, I don’t know, but for sure, he has three, four, five years ahead of him that he can win slams.
“I think his game is amazing. And although he can play well everywhere, I think clay is the best surface for him. He has all the shots to do well on clay. And as he proved this last month, winning Monte-Carlo and Rome, he probably is the biggest favorite to win the French Open.”
With Alcaraz and Sinner leading the charge in the men’s draw, it feels like this year’s tournament in Paris is truly the start of a new era. Nadal, an unprecedented 14-time champion on these courts, has called time on his career, and instead will be honored by organizers when play begins on Sunday.
Moyá, himself a former French Open champion who coached Nadal to eight grand slam titles, will be there to soak up the tributes to the tournament’s favorite son. The chance to acknowledge Nadal’s astonishing French Open record – he lost just four of his 116 matches on the Paris Clay – will be bittersweet, a fond but painful parting.
“It’s going to be a strange feeling for me, but we’re going to enjoy it,” says Moyá. “We enjoyed it so much in the past eight years being with Rafa. He was feeling unbeatable and we always have great memories when we’ve been there, and also for me because of what happened in ’98 (defeating fellow Spaniard Àlex Corretja in the final).
“It’s going to be a different feeling, and I don’t think I’ll watch too much on TV once I’m home because I feel kind of sad not being there. But I wish all the best to all the competitors that are going to be there.”
Indeed, Moyá admits that he hasn’t watched a lot of tennis since Nadal bid goodbye to the sport in November. He’s yet to take up another full-time coaching post, but has been named a captain for the inaugural Legends Team Cup, a new tour in which 15 not-long-retired players have been drafted into three teams.
The tournament gets underway on the Caribbean island of St. Barts next month, while Moyá’s team – which features 2020 US Open champion Dominic Thiem, as well as former top-10 players Diego Schwartzman and Fernando Verdasco – will make a first appearance in New York in July.
“During the years I’ve been with Rafa, (he) played against probably all of them,” says Moyá. “That’s going to help me a little bit. And I hope to give my team the right orders. They are good enough to play even without the captain, but I’ll try to help. I’ll try to add my experience, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
The Legends Team Cup is a timely reminder that, although an elite athlete’s body may wane with time, the desire to compete at a high level never fades entirely.
“This is what we have in our blood – try to win whatever it takes,” Moyá adds. “Sometimes, you miss that competition.”
That same competitive desire might be reignited briefly when Moyá and Nadal return to the French Open’s Court Philippe-Chatrier on Sunday, albeit without the forehands and fireworks that typified Nadal’s all-conquering performances on clay.
As they soak up the tributes and applause, both will have the chance to see Alcaraz kick-off his title defense, the same nervous teenager who was crushed by his idol just over four years ago. With Nadal in the stands and Alcaraz now the formidable force on the court, it will be hard to escape the sense that one tennis generation is finally giving way to the next.
And if there’s one thing the two men have in common, for Moyá it boils down to mentality. “This never-say-die attitude, they both have it,” he says, “and this killer instinct, they have it.”
Nadal built a fortress at the French Open. The time now feels ripe for Alcaraz to forge a legacy of his own.
