Carlos Alcaraz defended his Wimbledon title by beating the great champion Novak Djokovic in the final. Today, as the Serb admits, he was simply “better in every aspect, one step ahead.” At 21, the Spaniard has already won his fourth “Helmet” and does not intend to stop there. At the press conference, Carlos said that he still considers Novak Superman, and does not yet classify himself as one of the “greats,” but dreams of being on par with them at the end of his career.
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Alcaraz defeated Djokovic again in the Wimbledon final. And won the rarest “Channel Helmet”.
“Someday I want to sit at the same table with the greats. This is my dream”
– You have a championship ball in front of you and there will be football at the same time. How will you see it? — I will have dinner with all the winners. I will watch the first half on my phone and the second on TV. I can’t miss it! This will be an important moment for the Spanish people. They saw my end, I have to watch them and support them.
— Last year there was a crazy match and this year you dominated. How did it feel? – The feeling is great, a great match for me. Novak didn’t play very well in the first two sets, he made a lot of mistakes and I took advantage of that. Think about it, I won Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year, few people have managed that. This is incredible. I try to understand that I won Wimbledon twice.
— There are a lot of statistics about you: you became the youngest of this, the youngest of that. Are you proud of it or do you not care? – Of course, I saw all these statistics. That I am the youngest player to win Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year. I try not to think about it. This is a wonderful start to a career, but we must continue to build our path. One day I want to sit at the same table with the greats. This is my main goal. My dream. It doesn’t matter that at 21 I have already won four Slams. If I don’t continue like this at these tournaments, it doesn’t matter. I really want to continue. I will try to keep winning and have many titles at the end of my career.
– Roger, Rafa, Novak, none of them had four Slams by the age of 21. What number would you be happy with, how many titles would you like to win? “I’m happy now with the work I’m doing with the team. I’m very proud of myself and everything I do. Very proud of everyone on my team. Everything we’ve achieved already is something incredible. Amazing way. I want to continue, improve and grow. Try to keep winning. That’s all that matters to me now. I don’t know where my limit is and I don’t want to think about it. I just want to keep enjoying my moment. Keep dreaming. Let’s see how many titles I’ll have at the end of my career: 25, 30, 15, 4. I don’t know. I just want to keep enjoying myself and see what the future holds for me.”
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“I still think Novak is Superman.”
— Before the tournament, you called Novak Superman. And now you are Superman? “I still believe that Novak is Superman. What he did in this tournament, which started just a few weeks after the surgery, is incredible and amazing. As I said on court, I told my team that he did an incredible job. I gave myself the opportunity to play in the tournament. And that he reached the final is, in my opinion, something fantastic. Today I beat him. But for me Novak is still Superman.
— What else can you improve? Novak said he’s never seen you serve like you did today. — In the first match my serve was very bad, I knew I had to work on it. I trained my serve to improve. In each subsequent match I managed to improve, I am very happy that I served like that today, in the final it became my main weapon. We need to keep improving everything: the forehand can be better, the game as a whole can be better. We need to grow.
— Yannick and you won all the Grand Slams this year. Are you and he in charge of everything now? – Yannick and I, aged 21 and 22, are at the top of the rankings, winning Grand Slams. I think it’s good for tennis when new faces win big trophies and compete in big tournaments. I’m very happy that it exists. As I said, we have a great match-up with him. Many young players are on their way and are also striving for big achievements. It’s fantastic for the sport, for tennis and also for the players.
— After losing to Medvedev at the US Open, you said you need to mature a bit. Do you feel like you’re mature? — Yes, I learned a lesson from that match with Daniil at the US Open 2023. I needed to be better, to mature in such situations. As I recall now, I gave up a bit in the second set after losing the first. This is unacceptable at the Casco. This cannot be repeated. This helped me a lot in the following tournaments, I need to be stronger psychologically, to show my best tennis in close and difficult situations. I am here now because of situations like these that taught me lessons.
