This time I am not traveling with Roberto Carretero and Albert Costa.
Now, in the courtesy vehicle, I am accompanied by three Japanese journalists who speak Japanese, talk like parrots, and at one point they take a break and switch to English and ask the driver:
– How has your day been?
-Whew, I've been very busy. I've spent all day driving people from here to there. I have taken Brad Pitt.
Silence in the car.
–Have you taken Brad Pitt? Here, in this car? –asks the Japanese chronicler.
“Oh, God, I've said too much already,” the driver replies.
And now the man closes his mouth.
And the Japanese go back to Japanese, and I go back to my mental mazes.
When I ask Carlos Alcaraz (20) how he is dealing with all this fame, not being able to move freely around the world, the Murcian replies:
-I'm doing well. I'm a normal person, an ordinary guy, so I'm not going to stop myself from doing the things I'm doing. Maybe I'm slower in my things, I do everything with a little more patience, stopping for the photos.
Can you be patient?
What I do is turn it around. I consider that those people who ask me for the photo are also behind the screen, encouraging and supporting me. And I need that love and energy to win these kinds of matches. So when I stop and chat with them, I do it with all the love in the world. And if I can, in Murcia I go out and walk around the center, and without problem.
-That's possible?
–Well, it takes me longer to get to the places. But it doesn't change anything.
–And if you go on vacation, do you choose a place, already remote, where they don't recognize you?
-Well, I do. I am looking for a quieter area, because the season is very long and you have to disconnect.
Carlos Alcaraz has received La Vanguardia at his home, a three-minute walk from the All England Lawn Tennis Club. The place is a two-story building where hustle and bustle reigns inside. The Alcaraz team is collecting. Juan Carlos Ferrero, the coach, gives us high fives one by one, looking into our eyes, and Jaime (11), the talent's little brother, shoots a basket in the courtyard.
“Well done, friends, come back next year, we'll give you luck,” the neighbor calls out, behind the wheel of his Mercedes.
When going out to run errands, the man says goodbye to Carlos Alcaraz, the father.
On the kitchen island, there are croissants, juices, coffee, and two boxes of Iberico ham that are supposed to come from Spain.
On the table in the spacious dining room, a miscellany of English covers.
“Alcaraz takes Djokovic’s Wimbledon crown”, dice The Times.
“Djokovic denied”, The Guardian.
The florist brings a gigantic bouquet. The vase weighs like an eternity.
“Between this and the track network, I don't know how we're going to get the bouquet, really,” says Carlos Alcaraz, the father.
I ask Carlos Alcaraz, the son, the genius of tennis, the new king of Wimbledon:
– Have you already spoken with Nadal?
–Well, he sent me a message of congratulations after the game. He congratulated me. I have not been able to have a more fluid conversation with him, but these messages are appreciated.
–During the tournament, in the moments of pressure that accompany a two-week tour, do you communicate with Nadal? Do you ask for advice?
-The truth is, no. I would love it, but he is with his life. I would love to text him and ask him things, but he is with his life, with his family and his new son. I won't say I know how he feels when others text him all the time, but I'd rather not bother him. I would love to be in more contact with him and chat more times.
Jaime's ball bounces in the distance. The boy plays with the chroniclers, who entertain themselves at 21 while they wait their turn.
–Bravo, champion –hesitates a colleague on the radio.
You just beat him.
The father of the family remembers that his other son, the legendary Carlitos, did the same in his childhood at the Tennis Club de Campo Murcia, a step away from his house.
"He was like that all day, the boy in the pediment," says the father.
–Are you connected to the world? Do you know how much a bottle of milk from the supermarket costs? I ask the tennis player.
–Of course, when I have days off and I go to a friend's house for dinner, I suggest: 'Shall we go to the supermarket and buy some rice, hamburgers and make them at home?' The others stand up and tell me to stay, but I insist: 'Hey, I'm going with you, I want things to be natural'.
–Aren't you going to get away from the world? Won't you fly in a private plane while the others carry your bags for you?
There are things that are progressing. I am having the opportunity to travel from time to time by private plane, on flights with my people. But sometimes I feel embarrassed to put myself in those situations in which they take my suitcase, when I can carry it myself. Or those players that I see that the coach brings the racket bag to them... Until recently, I myself took the rackets to the stringer and picked them up. Those details make a humble person, down to earth.
-It will not be easy. Djokovic told you that he has the best of all three Big Three worlds. How do you see it?
–I suppose I have part of the mental strength and the level of defenses of Nadal. Mentally, I think he is much better than anyone, myself included. And Federer's shots, that going to the net and volleying, that creativity. And the physical level of Djokovic, the elasticity of him, his way of sliding...
