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      Two Chances, Two Goals and Two Wins for Germany

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      Spain had more of the ball and did more with it. But Germany, the standard of excellence at the Euros, did enough to reach the quarterfinals.LONDON — It was the ruthlessness that caught the eye in those few vital moments, the cold and clinical efficiency of it all.Spain looked, in many regards, to be a better team than Germany at the European women’s soccer championships on Tuesday night. It had more of the ball and did more with it, and it offered more style and more industry and, at times, even a bit more bite. And in a showdown that was widely seen as a meeting of a continent’s soccer past — Germany has won this tournament a record eight times — and its soccer present, it was Spain that, for frequent stretches, offered a glimpse at European soccer’s future.The problem for Spain, though, was that it gave up two golden chances, Germany pounced on both of them, and that was that. The Germans won, 2-0, to claim a place in next week’s quarterfinals, and the Spanish were left to wonder if this tournament would really be their coming-out party after all.“There were two big mistakes that we paid for,” Spain Coach Jorge Vilda said, “but we know that’s how it is against Germany.”These are already looking like the Euros of What Could Have Been for Spain: if the veteran Jenni Hermoso hadn’t sprained a knee ligament a month before the tournament; if the world player of the year, Alexia Putellas, hadn’t torn a knee ligament only days before the opener; if this cross had delivered a little more bend and that shot had arrived with a bit more curl.Center backs Marina Hegering, left, and Kathrin Hendrich helped Germany post its second shutout at the Euros.John Sibley/ReutersGermany has had nothing of those concerns. Its deep and talented team merely went about its work again on Tuesday: clearing the shots that needed clearing, saving the ones that sneaked through, winning the battles that needed winning. Style points hardly mattered when the final whistle blew. Germany, which has scored six goals and surrendered none since arriving in England, had what it had come to take.In some ways, oddly, Spain’s second game at the Euros was an improvement over its first. In its opener, it had conceded a goal in less than a minute. On Tuesday, it took nearly three to do the same.The goal had come seemingly out of nothing: Spain was calmly working the ball around the back, maneuvering out of some pressure, when goalkeeper Sandra Paños collected it in her goalmouth and fired a clearing ball directly into Germany forward Klara Bühl’s midsection. Bühl settled the ball, sidestepped a defender and coolly slotted it under Paños and into the side netting.Goalkeeper Sandra Paños and Spain surrendered an early goal for the second game in a row.Dylan Martinez/ReutersStunned by an early goal for the second game in a row, Spain dusted itself off and went back to work. In its opening game against Finland, it atoned for its early mistake by scoring four goals. On Tuesday, it went searching for them again, controlling possession by more than two to one, completing several hundred more passes than the Germans, stroking the ball around the grass in a soothing geometry of neat zigzags and diamonds and triangles.But the goals never came. And then, about a half-hour after the first goal, Germany won a corner, fired it toward the forehead of striker Alexandra Popp and watched her nod it past Paños. Spain led nearly all the statistics by then, including oohs and ahs, but trailed in the only one that truly mattered.Germany’s victory was more than symbolic: By winning and taking control of Group B, Germany most likely will avoid a quarterfinal meeting against England, which thrashed Norway on Monday night, 8-0, in Group A — even if that collision arrives eventually.“In Europe, we have the best teams in the world,” defender Marina Hegering said. “If you want to reach the final, you have to beat everyone.”On the other side, the defeat came on what was already a grim day for Spanish women’s soccer. Hours earlier, F.C. Barcelona, Putellas’s club team, had confirmed that her knee had been repaired by a surgeon, but that she would most likely miss as much as a year while she recovered. Her injury already has affected Spain’s prospects at these Euros. Now it might bleed into its hopes at next summer’s World Cup.But that is a tomorrow problem for Spain, which will look to bounce back against Denmark on Saturday, and hopefully again after that in what is now a looming quarterfinal against England.Germany, meanwhile, marched methodically ahead with its second straight shutout, looking like soccer’s past still has quite a bit more time to go. More

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      World Cup 2022: What to Know as Teams Prepare for Qatar

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      The World Cup draw is Friday in Qatar, even though the entire field isn’t yet complete. While we don’t know all the teams, we do know quite a bit about how things will play out. Here’s a primer on the world’s greatest sporting spectacle.When is the World Cup?The opening match is Nov. 21 (three days before Thanksgiving in the United States). Over the month that follows, all the games will take place in a tight circle of eight stadiums in and around Qatar’s capital, Doha, making it the most compact World Cup in history.The final is Dec. 18 — a week before Christmas, which means the Doha airport on the morning of Dec. 19 is going to look like the entrance to a Walmart on Black Friday.Wait, don’t they play the World Cup in July?They always had, until Qatar got it.Qatar, like the other bidders, initially proposed holding the tournament in its normal summer window, and brushed aside any suggestion it could not do so with the help of cooling technology that did not, at the time, exist. As The Times wrote on the day of the vote in 2010:“Qatar’s bid overcame concerns about heat that can reach 120 degrees there in the summer. Officials say they will build air-conditioned stadiums, spending $4 billion to upgrade three arenas and build nine new ones in a compact area connected by a subway system.”It took more than four years, but in 2015 FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, eventually concluded that a summer World Cup in 120-degree temperatures might bring unneeded problems (like, say, fans and players dying) and agreed to move the tournament to the relatively cooler months of November and December.The Education City stadium in Al Rayyan, one of eight built or remodeled for the 2022 World Cup.David Ramos/Getty ImagesWhat about the league games that normally take place then?Oh, the leagues grumbled. A lot. But they lost.The switch to winter will disrupt not only league competitions in Europe and elsewhere, but also the lucrative UEFA Champions League, and it will require starting seasons earlier or finishing them later, or both.A winter World Cup also would leave those professionals who do not go to Qatar — less than 800 of the world’s players take part — with a midseason break that could extend to two months, once pretournament camps and friendlies and post-Cup rest is factored in.Fox Sports, which paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the United States broadcast rights, will have to wedge in a month of soccer games around another fall sport that tends to demand attention that time of year. Maybe you’ve heard of the N.F.L.?How many teams get in?A total of 32. They’ll be split into eight groups of four. The top two finishers in each group advance to the round of 16. After that, the World Cup is a straight knockout tournament.Which countries have qualified?Qatar qualified automatically as the host, and 28 other teams so far have joined it. Those include most of the biggest teams from Europe and South America: England and Germany, Brazil and Argentina, France and Spain.Canada is in. The United States and Mexico joined the field on Wednesday night.Ukraine might still go. Russia will not.Three places remain unclaimed. One will come from Europe, where Ukraine’s playoff against Scotland was postponed by war. Those teams will meet in June, with the winner to face Wales for Europe’s final place.The other two entries will come from two intercontinental playoffs that month: Costa Rica will face New Zealand, the Oceania survivor, in one game, and Peru, the fifth-place team from South America, will face an Asian team, either Australia or the United Arab Emirates.Are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo going?Yes and yes.Argentina, and Messi, qualified in November. But Portugal, and Ronaldo, needed to sweat out a European playoff after botching its guaranteed route to the finals in the group stage.Will Qatar be Lionel Messi’s last World Cup?Franklin Jacome/Pool Via ReutersWho won’t be there?Erling Haaland, for one. (Norway didn’t qualify.) Mohamed Salah. (Egypt lost to Senegal on penalty kicks for the second time in a month.)Oh, and Italy. But then that’s not new for them. The Italians missed the 2018 tournament, too. Whoops.When will the games take place?Qatar is in the same time zone as Moscow. So whatever strategy you used to wake up early (or stay up late) for the games in 2018 will work this time, too. But it will mean kickoffs as early as 4 a.m. Eastern, and no later than 2 p.m. Eastern.How can I find out who my team is playing?The World Cup draw is Friday in Qatar. In it, all 29 teams that have qualified and the three still to be determined will be placed in groups. So by the end of the day, you’ll know which three teams your team will face in the group stage, and have a good idea of who might await in the knockout rounds.Harry Kane and England made the semifinals at the last World Cup and the final at last summer’s European Championship. Could 2022 be their year at last?Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWho are the favorites?The usual suspects qualified early, so many of them, in fact, that our soccer columnist, Rory Smith, wrote in November that “the likelihood is that the winner is already there.”Quite what the tournament, riddled with scandal and concern from the day Qatar was announced as the host, will be like cannot yet be known. The identities of the teams who will contest it, though, are — for the most part — extremely familiar.Most, if not quite all, of the traditional contenders are already there: a 10-country-strong European contingent led by France, the defending champion, and Belgium, officially the world’s best team, as well as the likes of Spain and England and Germany. They have been joined by the two great powerhouses of South America, Brazil and Argentina.More than a dozen more teams have joined the party since those sentences were written last year. Which is to say that, in March, it’s still wide open. More

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      At Indian Wells, Spain’s Nadal and Alcaraz Meet in Men’s Semifinal

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      One is a champion many times over who is enjoying a late-career revival. The other is a newcomer overflowing with potential who is quickly closing the gap.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rafael Nadal, who had just defused Nick Kyrgios in three tense sets to reach the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open, was trying to focus on the questions.But Nadal kept getting distracted at the news conference on Thursday, looking at the television in the corner of the room that was showing the quarterfinal match between his 18-year-old Spanish compatriot Carlos Alcaraz and the defending champion, Cameron Norrie.“It was a break point,” Nadal explained as he shifted his gaze back to the reporters at hand. “Sorry, about that.”Despite his youth, Alcaraz, born in Murcia and coached by the former No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, has long been considered a potentially great player by tennis cognoscenti inside and outside Spain.But potential and reality are converging quickly. After defeating Norrie, 6-4, 6-3, Alcaraz is into the semifinals for the first time at a Masters 1000 event. He will face Nadal, the ultimate Spanish tennis champion, who holds the men’s record with 21 Grand Slam singles titles and is unbeaten in 2022.Nadal, 35, is nearly twice Alcaraz’s age and defeated him, 6-1, 6-2, last year on clay on Alcaraz’s 18th birthday in the round of 32 at the Madrid Open. Alcaraz needed treatment for an abdominal injury early in that match, but he was also nervous and impatient as he faced one of his idols.But Alcaraz’s second match with Nadal, which will come on a gritty hardcourt on Saturday, could be considerably more compelling. Since their first meeting, Alcaraz has soared into the top 20, reaching the quarterfinals in his first U.S. Open last year, winning the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan and then recovering from Covid-19 to win 11 of his 12 singles matches so far in 2022.“Carlos is not even the future; he’s the present,” said Paula Badosa, the top-ranked Spanish woman and reigning singles champion in Indian Wells.Saturday should provide an excellent sense of how far Alcaraz has come. Hardcourts should not be his best surface. He grew up, like Nadal, playing primarily on clay in Spain. But he now practices regularly on hardcourts at the academy in Villena where he trains under Ferrero. And as Alcaraz’s deep run at the U.S. Open made clear, he knows how to move, slide and entertain on this surface, too.Win or lose on Saturday, Nadal believes Alcaraz is the real deal.“I think he’s unstoppable in terms of his career,” Nadal said. “He has all the ingredients. He has the passion. He’s humble enough to work hard. He’s a good guy.”That is unusually high praise from Nadal, normally wary of adding to the burden of expectations on emerging stars, but he went further, explaining that Alcaraz reminds him of himself at age 17 or 18.Nadal was a genuine teen prodigy who won the first of his 13 French Open singles titles at age 19 in 2005 and would most likely have won it earlier if injuries had not forced him to skip the tournament in 2003 and 2004.Alcaraz’s smile was as big as his forehand when informed of Nadal’s comments.“It means a lot to hear those kinds of things from Rafa about yourself,” he said in Spanish, which he speaks much more fluently than English. “Rafa’s been through all kinds of things and has been on the top for many years, and for him to make those kinds of comments is really inspiring.”He is the youngest men’s semifinalist at Indian Wells since the American Andre Agassi in 1988 and like Agassi, he is a natural crowd pleaser with a flashy game and quick-strike power. But unlike Agassi, he has blazing speed. On Thursday night, Alcaraz reached shots that would have been winners against most players, and earned a standing ovation from the crowd after one corner-to-corner-to-corner rally.“It’s very cool to see him that focused and engaged and maximizing what he’s got with all the talent that he’s got,” Norrie said. “He was too good today for me.”Carlos Alcaraz after match point against Cameron Norrie. Alcaraz is the youngest men’s semifinalist at Indian Wells since Andre Agassi in 1988.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesBut tennis is a brutally competitive and grueling game. Injuries can change even the most gifted players’ trajectories: See Juan Martin del Potro, the Argentine star with the thunderous forehand whose career appears to be over.But Alcaraz, for now, is an all-court marvel: predatory in the backcourt and forecourt; able to rip airborne groundstrokes or hit feathery forehand drop shots; able to play defense far behind the baseline or move forward to smack second-serve returns on the rise.“He walked all over me, and not because I was tired, but because of his physicality,” Gaël Monfils, the French star, said of his loss, 7-5, 6-1, to Alcaraz on Wednesday. “At some point, you just can’t hang in there anymore.”Nadal is in the midst of a revival: undefeated this season at 19-0 after winning three tournaments, including the Australian Open by rallying from a two-set deficit in the final against Daniil Medvedev.Nadal has worked his way through the draw here despite the chronic foot problem that ruined the end of last season for him and continues to cause him pain. He could have skipped this tournament to rest and prepare for his beloved clay, just as he is skipping next week’s Miami Open. But he enjoys Indian Wells, staying at the home of the tournament owner, Larry Ellison, and playing golf regularly.His tennis matches have been no vacation, however. He came within two points of defeat against the young American Sebastian Korda in his opening round before rallying from two breaks down in the third set. Kyrgios, one of the game’s biggest servers and flashiest shotmakers, pushed him to the wire.They remain quite the contrasts: Nadal the maximizer of potential; Kyrgios the flickering flame. Nadal is deliberate, sometimes ponderous, between serves and points. Kyrgios plays as if he has a plane to catch. Nadal has never thrown a racket in anger in his pro career; Kyrgios threw his twice on Thursday, the second time after losing the match, 7-6 (0), 5-7, 6-4. The racket rebounded off the court and flew toward the head of a ball boy standing near the back wall, who dodged it.Kyrgios, booed as he left the court on Thursday, has already been suspended by the men’s tour once in 2016 and put on probation a second time in 2019 for misbehavior. He risks another sanction after Thursday’s match, and the tour would be wise to crack down more convincingly on player tantrums. Last month, Alexander Zverev took four swings at an umpire’s chair, narrowly missing the umpire, in Acapulco, Mexico, and received no further suspension after being defaulted from the tournament.“When you allow the players to do stuff, then you don’t know when is the line, and it’s a tricky thing,” Nadal said.The Spaniard is now 6-3 against Kyrgios, who, for all his evident gifts, has yet to get past the quarterfinals in a Grand Slam singles tournament or win a Masters 1000 title.Nadal is one of the great champions in any sport and with victory secured and the news conference completed, he took a few more moments in front of the television to watch more of Alcaraz’s match and consider Saturday and beyond.“It’s great, honestly, to have such a star from my country,” Nadal said. “Because for the tennis lovers, we’re going to keep enjoying an amazing player fighting for the most important titles for the next I don’t know how many years. A lot of years.” More

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      Carlos Alcaraz Plays Matteo Berrettini at the Australian Open

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      Alcaraz is one of the most exciting next-generation talents in sports, and is the youngest player in the men’s draw at the Australian Open. He faces Matteo Berrettini in the third round.VILLENA, Spain — The rowdy tennis academy Christmas party was underway in the adjoining room. But Carlos Alcaraz was sitting calmly at a table surrounded by trophies and talking about the beauty of training in this place that was remote, relaxed and “tranquilo.”It was hard not to detect a metaphor as the dance music pounded through the wall.Alcaraz, a dynamic and genial Spaniard who is one of the most exciting next-generation talents in sports, will have to keep blocking out a great deal of commotion to fulfill his justifiably big dreams.At 18, he is drawing comparisons to Rafael Nadal, his compatriot, at the same age, even if their styles are dissimilar and Alcaraz has a photo of Roger Federer, not Nadal, in his room. But like Nadal back in the day, Alcaraz is a genuine prodigy: already ranked 31st on the tour and seeded at that spot at the Australian Open, where he has advanced to the third round despite contracting the coronavirus in November and skipping all the lead-in tournaments.“I think he’s got greatness written all over him,” said Paul Annacone, who coached Pete Sampras and Federer, now works with the top-ranked American Taylor Fritz, and is generally wary of praising players too soon.There is a photograph of Alcaraz standing with Roger Federer on a shelf in his bedroom.But Alcaraz, the youngest player in the men’s draw in Melbourne, can certainly carry you away with his airborne, all-court brand of tennis.At 6-foot-1, he is the same height as Federer and Nadal yet considerably shorter than the leaders of the new wave — Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Matteo Berrettini — all of whom are 6-foot-4 or taller. But on the court, he does not look like an under-leveraged underdog.His game is a bewitching blend of quick-strike power, abrupt changes of pace, and quicksilver movement resembling that of a gymnast as he slides into splits in the corners and maintains his body control even in extreme positions.“His game is electric,” Annacone said. “It’s a bit like lightning in a bottle. He’s got that fast racket, like Andre Agassi did, and he’s got the fast feet like Rafa does. He can play up on the baseline, and he can back up when he needs to. So, he has a lot of things so naturally already at 18 and he’s already 30 in the world, so I just can’t imagine how good he’s going to be in two years if he stays healthy.”Alcaraz is coached by Juan Carlos Ferrero, a self-contained Spaniard and former world No. 1 whose calm gaze seems well-suited to the stark, long-horizon landscape near Villena in southeastern Spain full of medieval fortresses and open space. Ferrero grew up near here and now is one of the owners of the JC Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy, where Alcaraz boards and trains.Alcaraz is able to maintain control of his body even in extreme positions.Jason O’Brien/EPA, via Shutterstock“The key this year is to keep working well and not think for a moment that the hard work is already done,” Ferrero said. “But knowing Carlos and the values he and his family have, I’d be very surprised if he lets success go to his head.”Alcaraz was born into a tennis family in El Palmar, a suburb of Murcia, about an hour’s drive from Villena. Alcaraz’s paternal grandfather, also named Carlos, helped transform a hunting club in El Palmar into a club with tennis courts and a swimming pool. Alcaraz’s father, also named Carlos, learned to play the game, inspired by the achievements of Manuel Santana, Spain’s first men’s Wimbledon champion, who died in December.A night time view of El Palmar, a little town outside Murcia where Alcaraz was born.But despite becoming one of the best players in Spain, Alcaraz’s father lacked the money to pursue a professional career for long: stopping at age 20 and becoming a tennis coach and administrator at the club. Alcaraz, the second of four sons, has taken the family passion to the next level.At age 3, he was already hitting balls against the wall at the club in El Palmar with a small racket.“There was no way to get him away from there,” his father explained. “I was already tired and ready to go home after working all day and Carlos would be pleading with me: ‘Play with me, here on the wall!’ It would be after 9 o’clock, and I’d say. “OK but only 20 minutes.’ And after 20 minutes, we’d go an extra 30 minutes, and he would want more and more. And I’d be the one to say, ‘This can’t go on, dinner’s ready and we have to go home.’ And he’d start crying again.”The father soon realized that his son was a quick study, and he made sure that Alcaraz acquired a full tennis tool kit, including the drop shot that Alcaraz put to such effective use Wednesday in his second-round victory over Dusan Lajovic of Serbia.Alcaraz’s family could not afford to support his travel and training, but they received backing from the Murcian businessman Alfonso Lopez Rueda, a family friend who provided the approximately 2,000 euros Alcaraz needed to travel to a junior tournament in Croatia when he was 10 years old. Alcaraz’s father, Carlos, was also a tennis player, having been inspired by Manuel Santana.After Alcaraz lost in the final and returned to El Palmar, Lopez Rueda said he would be delighted to continue providing financial assistance.“Carlos and our family are forever grateful to him,” Alcaraz’s father said.With Alcaraz’s talent and junior results, other benefactors eventually arrived, including I.M.G., the global management agency that has long had a major presence in tennis.Albert Molina, Alcaraz’s agent with I.M.G., worked with David Ferrer, the retired Spanish star, and with Ferrero, which is how the coaching connection was made in 2018 after Ferrero had split with Zverev on acrimonious terms.Alcaraz spends weekdays at the academy and returns to El Palmar on weekends. “I once planned to remain at home, but it was hard to find practice partners,” he said. “I think if I would have stayed in Murcia, it would have taken longer for me to rise. In Murcia, there are more distractions. Lots of friends. Going out at night. Here in the academy I don’t have that.”Ferrero appreciates that Alcaraz’s father does not interfere with his coaching. Ferrero, nearly as lean at age 41 as he was in his prime, won the French Open and reached No. 1 in 2003 before Federer and Nadal took command. He has been where Alcaraz wants to get.“I’m still quite young, and I’m going through a period where everything is new for me, and Juan Carlos already has lived through this, and he can really bring me that experience that other coaches cannot,” Alcaraz said. “He lived it from the inside.”Juan Carlos Ferrero, Alcaraz’s coach, won the French Open and reached No. 1 in 2003.And what tip from Ferrero has proved the most helpful so far?“Above all, he told me not to be in a hurry,” Alcaraz said. “That I’m going to get the experience and play the tournaments and learn the ropes, and that there’s no need to get ahead of the process. I need to live all these moments and not be in a hurry for the results right away because I’m going up against the best in the world for the first time in all these tournaments that I’m playing for the first time. And I need to enjoy it and respect it and acquire the experience I need to have a clear vision of it all.”That has not stopped coach and pupil from announcing lofty goals for 2022 that include securing a spot in the top 15. Alcaraz made clear on Monday that he would prefer making the top eight and qualifying for the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin, Italy.What is obvious as Alcaraz prepares to face the No. 7 seed Berrettini in the third round on Friday in Melbourne is that the best players in the world are already nervous. He might not have a driver’s license but he does have game.A late-night training session in the gym at Juan Carlos Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy in Villena, Alicante, in southeast Spain.Just ask Tsitsipas, whom Alcaraz beat at the 2021 U.S. Open in a fast-twitch, third-round thriller that ended in a fifth-set tiebreaker and overflowed with audacious shotmaking.“Ball speed was incredible,” Tsitsipas said. “I’ve never seen someone hit the ball so hard. Took time to adjust.”Alcaraz reached the quarterfinals in New York, where he retired for the first time on the main tour, stopping in the second set against Felix Auger-Aliassime because of a thigh injury.“That was really unfortunate,” Alcaraz said. “I don’t like to retire from anything, but the pain was so bad that I was worried I was going to do something more serious if I kept playing.”But the Tsitsipas match has stayed with him. It was, in his view, the best example so far of how he wants to perform. He played positive, attacking tennis with full intensity — “Beastly,” Alcaraz said with a chuckle — but also enough enjoyment in the moment to keep from getting tense. There were smiles under duress.“I’m a kid who needs to be happy and lively on the court,” Alcaraz said. “When I’m dead serious the whole time, it’s not a good sign for me. It makes me more nervous.”“I’m going through a period where everything is new for me,” Alcaraz said. “Juan Carlos already has lived through this”.What caught Ferrero’s attention was how Alcaraz reacted to the big stage of Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest tennis-specific stadium in the world with its 23,771 seats. Off the court, Alcaraz is cheerful and easygoing. Ferrero uses words like “cercana” (close) and “abierta” (open) and “fiel” (loyal).But with the ball in play, he is fierce and intense.“On court, he’s a fighter,” Ferrero said. “The best players have character, a lot of it. To be in the U.S. Open and play Tsitsipas on the largest court in the world, if you don’t have character you shrink. Carlos is quite the contrary. He seems to get bigger, and that to me is a very good sign.”Getting stronger is also part of the plan. Alcaraz spent much of this off-season the same way he spent much of last off-season: doing strength and conditioning work to prepare himself for best-of-five-set tennis and a busy schedule. Going sleeveless in Melbourne was partly a link to Spanish tennis stars past (like Nadal and Carlos Moya) but also an expression of confidence in his more muscular build.“We know that this year I’m going to have to play some long matches, and so it’s important to feel strong physically,” Alcaraz said. “Knowing that you can hold up is very important.”Ferrero likes the comparison of Alcaraz to a car with a powerful motor that requires a chassis that is sturdy enough to support it.“You can have great shots at 17 or 18 but if you don’t have the physical level, too, it’s not sustainable,” Ferrero said. “It’s essential work, but it has to be done right. You can’t go too fast.”“I’m a kid who needs to be happy and lively on the court,” Alcaraz said. “When I’m dead serious the whole time, it’s not a good sign for me. It makes me more nervous.”The academy in Villena was founded by Antonio Martinez Cascales, Ferrero’s longtime coach. There were just two red clay courts when Ferrero arrived at age 15, but it has 20 courts now and has grown into one of the leading academies in Spain. There are hardcourts, including an indoor hardcourt, and an artificial grass court as well as a pool, cabins and a sprawling clubhouse decorated primarily with memorabilia from Ferrero’s career.One clay court is named in honor of David Ferrer; another in honor of Pablo Carreño Busta, the 30-year-old who remains, at No. 21, the highest-ranked player based at the academy even if Alcaraz has become the focal point for the news media. “People focus on me because I’m young and doing very well, and people are always interested when you do things at a young age,” Alcaraz said. “But I am really not trying to focus on that.”He acknowledged that it was flattering but wildly premature to be compared with Nadal in light of Nadal’s 20 Grand Slam tournament singles titles and long run at the forefront of global sport.“I don’t want people to know me as a mini-Nadal or second Nadal,” he said. “I just want to be Carlos Alcaraz.”And who might that be?As the dance music continued next door, Alcaraz did not hesitate.“He is a young, humble guy who knows what he needs to do,” he answered. “A kid who wants to make his dreams come true and is working for that, training for that every day. I think I’m on the right path with my team here at the academy, and I hope in 10 years if we meet again in this room, I will have made my dreams reality.”Samuel Aranda More

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      Manuel Santana, Influential Spanish Tennis Champion, Dies at 83

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      He won the French Open twice and captured the U.S. National Championships and Wimbledon, as well as winning at the 1968 Olympics.MADRID — Manuel Santana, who as one of Spain’s first great tennis champions won four Grand Slam titles in the 1960s and heralded his country’s arrival as a tennis powerhouse, died on Saturday in Marbella, the beach town in southern Spain where he had long lived and managed a tennis club. He was 83.His death was announced by the Mutua Madrid Open tennis tournament, where Santana was honorary president. No cause was given, but Marcos García Montes, a lawyer and close friend of his, told a Spanish television show that Santana had died of a heart attack. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.Santana, the first Spaniard to win a Grand Slam event, rose to the top echelon of world tennis during the amateur era by winning the U.S. National Championships at Forest Hills, Queens, Wimbledon and the French Open, twice. He also represented Spain in winning a gold medal in singles and a silver in doubles at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City (when tennis was a demonstration sport at the Games).His victories inspired a host of Spanish players, who have kept Spain among the most successful countries in tennis to this day.That progeny includes Manuel Orantes, Carlos Moyá, Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Conchita Martínez. The greatest of them all, Rafael Nadal, a 20-time Grand Slam champion, called Santana his role model on Twitter. “A thousand thanks for what you did for our country and for opening the way for others,” he said.Santana, who never played in the Australian Open, and Sánchez Vicario are second to Nadal in Slam victories, with four each.Santana won 72 tournaments in his career. His first success in a Grand Slam came in 1961 in Paris on his favorite surface, clay. He defeated two Australian stars, Roy Emerson and Rod Laver, before capturing the final against Italy’s Nicola Pietrangeli, a two-time winner in Paris. Three years later, Santana defeated Pietrangeli again in the French Open.In 1965, Santana established his credentials on grass, the surface he had once derided as made for cows and the one used at the time by three of the Grand Slam tournaments: Wimbledon, Forest Hills and the Australian Open. He became the first European in almost four decades to win at Forest Hills that year, beating Cliff Drysdale in the final of the tournament, which was later renamed the U.S. Open.The next year, Santana skipped the French Open to better prepare for Wimbledon. The strategy worked: He defeated Dennis Ralston in the final. Upon receiving the trophy, Santana sought to kiss the hand of the Duchess of Kent, a breach of royal protocol. But the breach endeared him further to Spanish fans, who viewed him as a charismatic and warmhearted product of society’s margins in a sport once considered a realm of the elite.Manuel Santana Martínez was born on May 10, 1938, in Madrid. His father, Braulio Santana, was an electrician who was imprisoned after the Spanish Civil War and died when his son, known as Manolo, was a teenager. His mother, Mercedes Martínez, was a homemaker who struggled to raise her four children in an apartment building in which all the residents shared a single bathroom.Santana started at the Velázquez tennis club in Madrid as a ball boy, skipping school to collect tips from tennis players and earn money to support his mother. Tennis drew him, he said, because of the distance between competitors. “For somebody who always hated violence, a sport in which a net prevented physical contact felt like it was made for me,” he told the newspaper La Rioja of Logroño.At the club, he regularly prepared the clay court for two siblings from a wealthy family, Álvaro and Aurora Romero Girón. The two took an interest in Manuel and encouraged him to combine tennis with a commitment to school, while also providing financial support for Santana’s mother.When he was 13, he won the ball boys tournament at the Velázquez club and was officially admitted as a member. His game developed, and Santana, relying on an effective topspin, powerful forehand and craftily disguised drop shots, won the Spanish junior championships in 1955.“His game was pretty unique, and even though he was one of the best clay courters ever, he could play on anything,” said Stan Smith, the American former top player and president of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, which inducted Santana in 1984. “He was an ultimate big occasion competitor, but I don’t know anyone who didn’t like and respect him,” Smith added, in a statement on the hall’s website.After retiring as a tennis player, Santana went on to be captain of Spain’s Davis Cup team from 1980 to 1985 and 1995 to 1999. He managed two tennis clubs — in Madrid as well as Marbella — and until 2019 was the tournament director of the Mutua Madrid Open, whose center court was named after him.A fixture on the Spanish social scene, Santana was married four times and had five children. He is survived by his wife, Claudia Rodríguez; three children, Beatriz, Manolo and Borja, by his first wife, María Fernanda González-Dopeso; a daughter, Bárbara, with Bárbara Oltra; and another daughter, Alba, whose mother, Mila Ximénez, was a well-known Spanish journalist who died this year. Santana’s 1990 marriage to Otti Glanzelius, a former Swedish model, ended in divorce in 2009. More