The former coach of Andy Murray, Mark Petchey, doesn't think Carlos Alcaraz will win more than 20 Grand Slams in his career.
The way the young Spaniard started his career got a lot of people excited. Some people got even too excited as we saw more than a few bold claims. Serena Williams' former coach, Rick Macci, said that Carlos Alcaraz would end up as the greatest tennis player of all time.
He did become the youngest man to become world number one ever, so the hype wasn't without reason. Still, the Spaniard lived up to the hype partially. Not perfectly so because he proved to be very human, but he still had one of the quickest starts to a career we've seen in recent years.
Some still believe he will hit a very high number of Grand Slams, and it's likely. Very few would argue that he'll remain below 10, but 20 is a huge number.
Mark Petchey doesn't think it will happen, not because of Alcaraz or his talent but because the achievement itself is almost impossible. He's not the only one, either.
"We live in an unnatural time, because we've had these three players that have won 20 plus Majors and they have made sporting immortality like normal. So everybody else that's coming in their shadow is getting judged on this ridiculous benchmark that they are never going to hit."
Tennis fans have been quite spoiled because it's not the norm. Very few players ever will hit 20, and we have had three of them in the past two decades. That's not normal, nor will it ever be.
So what about Alcaraz? What does Petchey think about Alcaraz's chances?
"Do I think Carlos is ever gonna hit 20 Grand Slams? I don't, but will he win double digits, I think he will, pretty good career right?"
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