SEPT 19 - 21, 2025 | SAN FRANCISCO
At 22 the second-youngest man to six Grand Slam singles titles behind only his former Team Europe captain Bjorn Borg, Carlos Alcaraz has really come into his own in 2025.
The Spaniard arrived in San Francisco for Laver Cup on the heels of back-to-back titles at the Cincinnati Open and US Open, both coming at rival Jannik Sinner’s expense, a feat that helped him retake the No.1 ranking for the first time in two years. He now leads the tour in wins (61) and titles (seven) on the year.
“My whole life, I’ve been working so hard to be in this position,” said Alcaraz on Tuesday at the Chase Center, his close-cropped hair dyed a silvery-white. “Taking care of the tennis, resting well, everything; working on and off the court the best I can. It’s not an easy path. You have to work 100 percent every day. Even on the days you don’t want to train, you have to go for it. It’s been a really long, tough path, but really beautiful, as well.”
“It’s not an easy path. You have to work 100 percent every day. Even on the days you don’t want to train, you have to go for it.” — Carlos Alcaraz
The Spaniard heads a stacked Team Europe contingent that also includes Alexander Zverev, Casper Ruud, Holger Rune, Jakub Mensik and Flavio Cobolli.
“He’s near perfect,” said Alcaraz’s first-year captain, Yannick Noah. “His game is amazing for 22: So fast, he attacks, forehand, backhand, he’s quick. Mentally, he’s extremely strong, he comes in.”
Alcaraz made his Laver Cup debut last year in Berlin, where he accounted for a team-leading eight points, including the clincher in the form of a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Team World’s Taylor Fritz. Opposing captain Andre Agassi knows he’ll have his hands full in trying to keep Alcaraz off the board in the City by the Bay.
“We’ve come off a generation with Novak, Roger and Rafa, and if you take the best of what each of them do, it’s like it’s turned into one person,” said Agassi of Alcaraz. “He can defend like Novak. He has soft hands and feel like Federer, and he can generate RPMs and pace like Rafa. And you’ve got the speed — offensively and defensively. You’ve got the passion that keeps him fired up the whole time. He kind of has the whole package. The thing you have to hope for is that he gets too creative out there. You hope he crosses that line every now and then to give you some hope.”
It only makes sense that Alcaraz would incorporate elements from the Big Three. He grew up idolizing them, after all.
“Rafa was my idol since I was a little kid, the way he approached the game. And, obviously, Roger, the way he played, the style, the elegance he had on the court. He was somebody I looked up to, too,” Alcaraz explained.
Did he know he would one day be in this position when he was just starting out, when countryman and former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero first came to scout him in southeastern Spain?
“I didn’t know, to be honest,” said Alcaraz. “A lot of players, when I was 13, 14 years old, were better than me. A lot of players achieved more than I did. But, for me, tennis was everything. It was my life. It was just in my head to at least try it. I just wanted to try to be professional.”
Alcaraz admits he didn’t know what to expect when he walked onto the Laver Cup courts in 2024. But now it’s become one of his favorite events on the calendar.
“It was weird,” he said with a laugh. “My rivals, one week ago I was fighting against them on the tennis court, and now they were my teammates. But I loved it. I loved the energy, the atmosphere. We’re all together just to try to bring the Cup to Europe. To get to know them off the court, as well, was a great experience for me. I couldn’t miss it this year.”
