In January 2020, 18-year-old Mattia Bellucci was preparing for his first-round match at an ITF World Tennis Tour event in Manacor, Spain, when he received a text from a friend about his 16-year-old opponent.
“A friend texted me and said, ‘This guy is going to be very, very good’,” Bellucci, now 24, recalled to ATPTour.com. “I said, ‘I don’t know this guy’, because he was two years younger than me and I didn’t play much in juniors. So at the time I didn’t recognise his name.”
Bellucci certainly does now. His opponent that day at the Rafa Nadal Academy presented by Movistar was Carlos Alcaraz, who within three years would go on to become the youngest No. 1 in PIF ATP Rankings history.
“I walked on court and played the first three games, and I was like, ‘Maybe I’m not going to win, but I can be [competitive] in this match’,” continued Bellucci. “Then I lost 2 & 1. It was a very difficult match, and I wasn’t expecting that, but now I know him better!
“He was returning like crazy. I remember he took the ball very early and I didn’t have time to do much, but I also remember that I had fun during that match. It was a surprise, obviously, but it was not where you mess up a little bit and don’t play well. I felt that I was playing kind of normal, but I was also curious to play him because everyone was saying that he was good.”
