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Marco Cecchinato starts again with new goals for 2023. The Italian tennis player reached the peak of his career in 2018, when he reached the Roland Garros semifinals, after defeating Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals, and climbed to number 16 in the ranking.
Since then, however, the Palermo-born player has suffered a downturn, falling to the slopes of the top-200. This season, thanks to two Challenger titles, he moved closer to the top-100 and finished the year as world number 101.
To start again next year, Cecchinato traveled to Spain, where he trained with world number one, Carlos Alcaraz: for the Spaniard, it is time to prepare for his return to the slopes after passing through Paris -Bercy. To immortalize the moment, a photo on Instagram that the Spanish himself published.
In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, he revealed the background to that training session and the impressions the Slam champion made on him: from his relationship with his coach to the comparison with another Spaniard, Rafael Nadal.
Marco Cecchinato praises Alcaraz
Marco Cecchinato has said that Carlos Alcaraz reminds him of the latter's illustrious compatriot Rafael Nadal. "I had a good training with Carlos. He's really an extraordinary boy, and he's very strong.
I've seen him grow a lot compared to the training sessions we've had in the past. ... Compared to a year ago, he is much more powerful and he sees that he is working to play the forehand winner right away. In some ways he reminds me a lot of Rafa (Nadal).
Certainly comparing yourself with players of the highest level gives you an extra boost." Carlos Alcaraz was recently commended by a well-known tennis journalist for outstanding achievements in his young career. "In Alcaraz, he looks like the real deal for anything that you can use to measure his success by, and the fact that the first one he got ended up being at the Us Open, which, I don’t think that’s what people would have predicted, I think that’s a good sign that he’s the man for all seasons and all surfaces," he noted on the Court-side with Beilinson Tennis podcast.
"He seems eager. He seems like a hard worker. He seems not to be taken by the trappings of having become No. 1. He seems to have his head on his shoulders. I mean, it’s really hard to know the truth of what goes on, but all signs point to ‘This guy is gonna be great’, and if he got (No. 1) as a teenager, that’s a good sign," Haber added.