Carlos Alcaraz looks up to WTA World No 1 Iga Swiatek

James Richardson
December 11, 2022

Iga Swiatek does not have a significant age gap over men’s World No 1 Carlos Alcaraz but the Spaniard is in awe of his female counterpart’s consistency across the 2022 season.

Alcaraz said in a recent interview that he admires Swiatek’s ability to be brilliant week in and week out.

Swiatek also has a stranglehold on the World No 1 ranking that will take some time to break, as she is almost guaranteed to reign for a least a year.

“I see her year has been incredible, she broke a record I think for the longest winning streak (this century). It’s amazing,” Alcaraz told Arab news ahead of a trip to Abu Dhabi.

“I wish to be like her, to not lose the No. 1. But I think it’s almost impossible. I’m going to lose it but the point is to recover it and stay there at No. 1 as much as I can.”

Like Swiatek, Alcaraz has consulted extensively with a sports psychologist Isabel Balaguer.

Swiatek has a fulltime counsellor travelling with her team, a move which might yet become the norm for the top players who have phenomenal stresses to deal with on the circuit.

“She is a big and important side of our work,” Alcaraz’s coach Juan Carlos Ferrero commented.

“It’s been about two years he’s working with her. It’s not like every week but every time that he feels he needs to talk to her about something that maybe is not right or something that is giving him more trouble in a match, he talks to her and tries to fix it a little bit.”

The crown appears not to sit very well on the head of Alcaraz but his coach believes he weill grow into it.

“After the US Open it was difficult to adapt to his new role on the tour for him,” said Ferrero.

“I was talking to him about how he had to manage everything but I think he needed to feel and to live it, go to a tournament and feel that pressure of being No. 1, playing matches being No. 1. It’s not very easy at the beginning and at the age of 19, it’s something that is not super mature to control everything that happened to him right now.

“He’s in a moment where he needs to live it like this and to feel what he’s going through and adapting. He knows it’s going to be like this until at least the Australian Open, so he needs to try to be normal but at the same time it’s not. But he has to.”

Carlos Alcaraz