The Spanish tennis powerhouse that produced Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal (2023)

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Carlos Alcaraz of Spain plays a forehand against Taro Daniel of Japan during a second round match at the 2023 French Open at Roland Garros on May 31, 2023 in Paris, France.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images hide caption

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Carlos Alcaraz of Spain plays a forehand against Taro Daniel of Japan during a second round match at the 2023 French Open at Roland Garros on May 31, 2023 in Paris, France.

Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

VILLA, SPAIN — It takes a series of miserable one-lane roads through the quiet, sun-drenched olive groves and orange groves of the southern Spanish countryside before you start hearing a chorus of screeches. tennis balls are hit by an elite group of players including the best player in the world,Carlos Alcaraz.

Last year the 20-year-old from nearby Murciaquickly climbed to the topof the game, through a combination of explosive high-angle drives, bouncing cannonball backhands and perfect drop shots that send opponents scrambling for the net, often to no avail.

Non-stop parade of Spanish stars

Alcaraz's rising star coincided with the fall of his greatest contemporary andcompatriot Rafael Nadal, who, after winning arecords 14 titlesat the French Open, it haswithdrew from this year's Grand Slam tournamentdue to a hip injury.

That both players are from Spain is no coincidence. A combination of factors – climate, infrastructure and coaching – over the past five decades have converged to create a Spanish pipeline of players who dominated tennis in the 1920s.^Stcentury.

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Spain's Rafael Nadal pictured at the 2023 'Australian Open' is out of the French Open due to injury. The Spanish star credits his early success to training as a boy in Spanish gyms.Patrick Hamilton/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Patrick Hamilton/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images

Spain's Rafael Nadal pictured at the 2023 'Australian Open' is out of the French Open due to injury. The Spanish star credits his early success to training as a boy in Spanish gyms.

Patrick Hamilton/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images

"It's not the best place in the world for a tennis academy, but it's a very quiet place with a good climate," says Antonio Cascales, fromJuan Carlos Ferrero Equelite Tennis Academy, a campus he co-founded and named after the first player to drive to No. 1 in the world.

Antonio Martinez Cascales is short, bald, and his face reveals a calm serenity as he walks between the gym's courts. He often stops to watch someone play, and that's what he did seven years ago when he saw Carlos Alcaraz play a game for the first time. The then 13-year-old lost to an opponent a year older, but he left a deep impression on Kaskalas. "What I saw was a boy with a lot of talent, but a little unruly," he says. "He didn't have a rigid level of play, but you could tell right away that he had promise."

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Antonio Cascales is at the tennis academy he founded with the player he trained for world No. 1, Juan Carlos Ferrero. The Juan Carlos Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy is located in the countryside near the town of Villena in southern Spain, Cascales' hometown, and current world number 1 player Carlos Alcaraz lives and trains there.Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption

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Rob Schmitz/NPR

Antonio Cascales is at the tennis academy he founded with the player he trained for world No. 1, Juan Carlos Ferrero. The Juan Carlos Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy is located in the countryside near the town of Villena in southern Spain, Cascales' hometown, and current world number 1 player Carlos Alcaraz lives and trains there.

Rob Schmitz/NPR

Cascales says that decades ago, when he first saw 10-year-old Juan Carlos Ferrero, he didn't have enough experience to tell if the boy would ever be world number one, but at the time, along with a retired Juan Carlos Ferrero brought Alcaraz into his academy, Cascales was older, wiser and convinced that this boy would one day dominate the sport.

Athletics and mentality

"It was his mindset," Cascales says. "He had a great passion for the sport. He was always watching tennis videos - he still does - and he would hit the ball really hard. With his passion, it was clear to me that he could do it. He was a fighter."

Being a fighter on court has become synonymous with Spanish tennis players: whether it's Alcaraz, Nadal, Carlos Moya or any of the dozens of Spaniards who have risen through the ranks in recent decades, Cascales says players from his home country tend to work harder because of the surface they grow up playing on.

"In the 1970s, Spain built over a thousand tennis clubs, all with clay courts," says Cascales. "So for fifty years, Spanish players have grown up playing on clay. The surface slows the game down and creates bigger points, so you have players who learn to work hard and play consistently."

A tennis court building boom half a century ago

The tennis court boom in Spain took place in the early 1970s when dictator Francisco Franco, unpopular in the West, fell in love with Spanish tennis champion Manolo Santana, who brought Spain to international fame by winning the US Open. , Wimbledon and the French Open. Franco quickly ordered the construction of thousands of tennis courts for the masses.

"Franco felt that tennis could be a great sport for the country, for all the people," says Chris Lewit, author ofThe secrets of Spanish tennis, "So he wanted to invest all over the country in tennis clubs and facilities. And those investments, a decade or two later, paid off and there was a big tennis boom in Spain."

More players meant the need for more coaches. Lewit says two coaches, both from Barcelona, ​​have become the most influential: Pato Alvarez and Lluis Bruguera. Both had students who mastered the sport in the 1980s and 1990s and their training methods were enshrined in national manuals distributed to local clubs in Spain.

Lewit says Alvarez was a ballroom dancer and made the floor a central aspect of training. "And he developed this method of exercises, mostly basket exercises. Sometimes in Spain they call them 'Cubes' or buckets of balls," says Lewit. "And it's these series of exercises and geometric movements that can be linked together."

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Lluis Bruguera is considered the "godfather of Spanish tennis". The 79-year-old developed exercises and drills used across the country to train Spain's top players and coached his own son, Sergi Bruguera, to the world's third-ranked player in the early 1990s. in Barcelona.Rob Schmitz/NPR hide caption

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Rob Schmitz/NPR

Lluis Bruguera is considered the "godfather of Spanish tennis". The 79-year-old developed exercises and drills used across the country to train Spain's top players and coached his own son, Sergi Bruguera, to the world's third-ranked player in the early 1990s. in Barcelona.

Rob Schmitz/NPR

It's a system coach Lluis Bruguera, now 79, still uses to teach players here at an academy in Barcelona. "I am often asked why there are so many top tennis players in Spain?" says Bruggera. "Well, it's because our system is good and the Spanish character is also good. It's no coincidence that almost every country in the world now uses these exercises to train their players."

Practice, don't yell

Some coaches yell at their players. Others teach them. Bruggera asks them questions. “Where is your hand? Bruggera asks a player, who responds by raising his hand.

"No," says Bruggera, clucking his tongue in frustration. “Where is your hand? he asks again, this time getting nothing in response but a confused look from the player.

"This," says Bruguera, pointing to the face of the player's racket, "is your hand."

Author Chris Lewit says Bruguera's training includes six pillars of what he calls the "Spanish method" and they include excellent footwork, a game that focuses on making as few mistakes as possible, developing a weapon for the arm and excellent defense. . But one of the most important pillars, Lewit says, is mental. "All the new players in Spain are taught to suffer on the tennis court, which, if you're not from Spain, might sound a little weird or strange, but they really believe it with all their hearts," says Lewit. "And it's a big part of their philosophy and their culture and the culture of tennis in Spain and also, to some extent, the culture itself."

And Lewit says one player, Rafael Nadal, exemplifies this aspect of Spanish tennis more than anyone else. “The attitude, the energy, the will to chase every ball and fight,” says Lewit, “you know when you're playing a Spanish player, it's going to be a long day at the office because they never give up, they never get tired. and they will fight you to the end."

The numbers seem to bear this out.

AccordingAssociation of Tennis Professionals, Spanish players accounted for an average of 13 of the top 100 male players each year over the past two decades. Compare that to an average of just nine American men, despite the fact that the US has seven times the population of Spain.

Back at the Juan Carlos Ferrero Academy, Alcaraz's coach Antonio Cascales says he believes Alcaraz will become one of the next greats in tennis, alongside Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. "In the creativity he uses in a typical match, I would compare him to Federer," says Cascales, "but in his tenacity and the way he fights to win a point, I would compare him more to Rafa."

And it's the Spanish fighting spirit, Cascales says, that usually wins out in the end.

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Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates after winning the second round of the French Open on Wednesday.Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates after winning the second round of the French Open on Wednesday.

Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images