{"id":13550,"date":"2025-04-23T12:47:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T12:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/carlos-alcaraz-on-rafael-nadal-comparisons-ibiza-trips-and-dealing-with-expectation\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T12:47:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T12:47:03","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-on-rafael-nadal-comparisons-ibiza-trips-and-dealing-with-expectation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/carlos-alcaraz-on-rafael-nadal-comparisons-ibiza-trips-and-dealing-with-expectation\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz on Rafael Nadal comparisons, Ibiza trips and dealing with expectation"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In one scene, Alcaraz talks tearfully about the moment he smashed his racquet after a second-round loss<\/a> to Gael Monfils at the Cincinnati Open.<\/p>\n

“The fact of the matter is, I wasn’t mentally strong enough to overcome all the stress,” he says. <\/p>\n

“I didn’t know if I needed to quit or if I was losing my passion.”<\/p>\n

Alcaraz also speaks about the impact of his 2023 French Open semi-final defeat by Novak Djokovic, after which he decided to go on holiday to Ibiza.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to go there basically to just get wasted,” he says. <\/p>\n

“I made the most of it because I knew I might not get another three days like that. When I got back, of course, I won Queen’s and Wimbledon. <\/p>\n

“I’m not saying partying helped me win, but taking that time off was good for me.”<\/p>\n

Alcaraz returned to Ibiza last year, against advice from his agent Albert Molina Lopez and coach Juan Carlos Ferrero. <\/p>\n

Soon afterwards, his Queen’s title defence was ended in the second round<\/a> by Britain’s Jack Draper – although Alcaraz went on to beat Djokovic in the Wimbledon final later that month.<\/p>\n

“We all knew amongst ourselves that he shouldn’t have gone to Ibiza,” says Ferrero.<\/p>\n

The former world number one, who previously coached Alexander Zverev, appears frustrated with his protege at times.<\/p>\n

“We are here to create the greatest player because of his abilities and opportunities,” he says. “But if he’s not that determined, [if] he’s OK with being ranked number 15 in the world, then we’ll lower our expectations.<\/p>\n

“But knowing the way I am, I think it would be very hard for me to keep working with him.”<\/p>\n

In the final scenes, Alcaraz wonders whether he has “the mindset” to “become the greatest player in history”.<\/p>\n

“Well, right now, I don’t know,” he says. “I’m still young, I have a lot ahead of me, but from what I’ve lived so far, I definitely prefer to put happiness before any kind of accomplishment.<\/p>\n

“Being happy is an accomplishment and happiness isn’t always easy to find.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one scene, Alcaraz talks tearfully about the moment he smashed his racquet after a second-round loss to Gael Monfils at the Cincinnati Open. “The fact of the matter is, I wasn’t mentally strong enough to overcome all the stress,” he says. “I didn’t know if I needed to quit or if I was losing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13552,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13550\/revisions\/13552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}