Tennis commentator Robbie Koenig has recalled his early impressions of Carlos Alcaraz and expressed his surprise at how quickly he rose to the top.

Alcaraz had a stellar season in 2022, winning 57 out of 70 matches with five titles to his name. He won his maiden Grand Slam title at the US Open and also triumphed at two Masters 1000 tournaments in Miami and Madrid.

The Spaniard’s performances saw him become the youngest male World No. 1 since the ATP rankings were introduced.

Robbie Koenig recently provided his initial impressions of Carlos Alcaraz while speaking on the “Control the Controllables” podcast. The South African said that he first learned about the Spaniard from his son Luke while covering Lorenzo Musetti’s Australian Open Boys’ singles final in 2019. He said:

“My Luke had played against Lorenzo Musetti and I commentated on him in the junior Aussie Open final. I was speaking about how good Lorenzo was as a junior and he (Luke) says, ‘He’s good but I am telling you I am practicing with this other kid in Spain, Carlos Alcaraz, and this kid is even better.’

“I said ‘What? Better than Musetti? I haven’t seen him play, I’m not so sure about that, I have to see at first hand.’ So that’s when that first came on to my radar that there was this guy out there from Spain who was pretty good, but I hadn’t seen much of him play.”

Koenig said that he started following Carlos Alcaraz after he beat Jannik Sinner 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in 2019 despite trailing 0-3 in the final set:

“And then I heard a story on ATP Tennis Radio. I think it was Barry Cowan who was interviewing Ricardo Piatti and he was talking about a match that Sinner played, I think it was back in 2018 (2019), against this young kid and he was 3-0 in the deciding set.

“He was only 17 at the time but 3-0 up he was in the deciding set, ended up losing it 6-3. This young kid that he lost to, was Carlos Alcaraz. I then started watching him make his way through the Challenger events.”

Koenig claimed that he was surprised at how quickly Alcaraz rose to the top of tennis’ pyramid:

“Maybe two years ago, he really came on to my radar in a big way. But even still, I cannot believe how meteoric the rise has been and how quickly everything has come together and what a complete player he is.”

“Carlos Alcaraz is coached very well” – Ivan Lendl

Ivan Lendl recently hailed the Spaniard and his coaching staff, claiming that he will only get better:

“Alcaraz is pretty good and he’s only going to get better for a while. I know Carlos Alcaraz is coached very well. He has a great team around him.

“Those guys are very, very good at what they do, the Spaniards. And Juan Carlos Ferrero is fantastic and they’re teaching him well, they’re teaching him the right things, they’re teaching him all the protocols.”

Lendl concluded:

“He’s an extremely polite young man. He’s great. The Spanish guys do something very good. The French guys do that as well. They retain their former pros and plug them into the programs.”

Alcaraz will enter the 2023 Australian Open as the top seed, the first such instance for him at a major tournament.

Edited by Anantaajith Ra

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