Alcaraz: “I want to enjoy these tournaments, this is the most important goal”

Carlos Alcarazwho on Sunday won the title of Argentina tomorrow After four months out of work due to injury, he said Monday that his goal this season is try to regain the first place in the world ranking, but without obsessing over the idea.

“That’s true My goal is to get back to number one, but I’m trying not to beat myself up about it.”confirmed Alcaraz, 19, in an interview with EFE in Rio de Janeiro, where he arrived early this Monday and where this week he will defend the Rio de Janeiro Open title he won last year.

The current number 2 in the ATP ranking states that, despite the goal of returning to the top of the ranking, he will try to enjoy each of the tournaments he will play in the season that started successfully in Argentina.

“It’s true that a very demanding year awaits me, where I defend great titles, but These are great tournaments that I want to go back to and I want to enjoy them. That is the most important goal“, said the tennis player in the interview he gave during his visit to Sugarloaf Mountain, one of the main tourist attractions in Rio.

After the title in Buenos Aires, Alcaraz reached 6,480 ATP points, still far behind Serbian Novak Djokovic, who has 7,070 and grabbed the first place in the standings.

Alcaraz can begin to deduct points from the Serbian if he wins this week’s Rio de Janeiro Open, the only ATP 500 tournament in South America, and the title he will defend on the clay courts of the Brazilian Jockey Club.

His opponent in the first round, on Tuesday, is the Brazilian Mateus Alves (556 ATP), 22, who is considered a local promise.

“I came to defend the title. I will face the contest thinking that I can win, thinking I have the level and ability to achieve it. And that’s the goal. Try to defend the title,” he said.

Victory in Rio de Janeiro would leave the Spaniard with almost 7,000 points and very close to Djokovic. “I don’t know (when he will return to first place), it doesn’t just depend on me. It also depends on Djokovic, who is there, fighting, and it also depends on Tsitsipas (Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas who threatens his second position with 5,940 points ) and many players who are at the top”, he said.

“I will give my best in every tournament and let’s see when I recover it (number one), if I recover,” he added.

The Murcian said that in Buenos Aires, where he defeated the British Cameron Norrie (number 13 in the world and will be his main opponent in Rio) in the final, he felt that he had regained the physical and psychological level he had. five months ago, when winning the 2022 US Open.

“Being four months without training or competing is very difficultbut in Buenos Aires I felt that I was at the same level where I came and every game was better”, said Alcaraz, who was out of work due to an injury that prevented him from playing, among other tournaments, the Masters Cup in Turin and the Australian Open.

Despite the accumulated fatigue in Argentina, Alcaraz asked the organizers of the Brazilian tournament to plan a visit to Sugar Loaf because he arrived in Rio with his relatives and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. Last year he went to Corcovado hill to see Christ the Redeemer.

But Monday’s tour was doubly special because he not only got to see the emblematic hill of Rio de Janeiro, which he praised for its amazing views, but he did it accompanied by his friends and flew in a helicopter for the first time in his life.

“Rio de Janeiro is a very special place. Here I had my first victory in an ATP tournament (in 2020 when I was 16 years old) and I won my first 500 title. And being able to come and live this city with my family is very special”, he highlighted.

Alcaraz admitted that until now, his family rarely accompanied him to tournaments, but gradually he is doing more. “It’s very special because it’s like he brought a part of the house,” he stressed.