Carlos Alcaraz speaks with CNN after US Open win
NEW YORK (CNN) — His last serve is the kind that would earn him top billing in any ranking list, but Carlos Alcaraz can’t give that credit to himself.
He can’t tell himself he’s done enough.
The American lost to Britain’s Roger Federer in the second round of the U.S Open. But he didn’t drop a set and he had a major victory of his own on Thursday night. He won the Rogers Cup, one of the top tournament in the circuit for the past 15 years for players from the United States and Canada.
“People said to me, ‘You are not only a great player, you are also a great person,'” Alcaraz said. “I am so proud of who I am as a human being. It would be so easy to just go out and play tennis, but no. I have to take care of me and take care of my family first. I have to take care of me. But it’s been very hard for me. It’s been very hard for my family.”
Alcaraz wasn’t perfect. He made a lot of unforced errors against a player who had a world No. 1 ranking from Monday to Friday. But the 24-year-old from Los Angeles, who was born in Mexico but grew up playing for the U.S. national team, won a hard-fought match that could have been a lot harder if he hadn’t made a mistake, and he took it all in stride.
“I’ve never thought in any way of what I deserved to win or not win from what I went out there to do,” he said. “I just don’t care about that. I just know, I’ve been so good from the beginning and I’ve been so, so close so many times.”
He was never close at Wimbledon. The U.S. Open, on the other hand, was his first major championship.
That made it even more fun. A lot of kids in the United States don’t go to major tournaments because of what they might learn in school. Alcaraz, however, was one of them.
“What I learned is that you just have to look and say, ‘I have to win this,’ ” he said. “I just have
