The playing careers of Roger Federer and Carlos Alcaraz never overlapped. Alcaraz began to rise to superstardom in 2021 and Federer was dealing with injuries and not playing. In 2019, though, when Alcaraz was 16 years old, the Spaniard and Federer played a warm-up session for the Swiss player ahead of Wimbledon.
The next day, one of Federer’s coaches asked him if he wanted to warm-up with Alcaraz again but Federer said no. He wanted to warm-up with Alcaraz’s coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, instead. To be fair, Ferrero and the Swiss star knew each other well as they played 13 times during their careers.
Federer also could have not known exactly how good Alcaraz would become. Plus, Federer was attempting to prepare for Wimbledon and playing a practice round with a 16-year old Alcaraz would have been more beneficial to the Spaniard than for Federer.
Roger Federer offers to apologize to Carlos Alcaraz at the Laver Cup
In a press conference ahead of this weekend’s Laver Cup, Federer also admitted that he has never watched Alcaraz play live. This is not intentional, it seems, but one would have guessed that Federer would have seen the Spaniard play because the Swiss player does still show up at important events and Alcaraz has played a number of important finals over the last few years.
Fed did say that he was excited to see Alcaraz play at the Laver Cup, though. He is also planning on offering the Spaniard an apology for the unintentional snub of Alcaraz at Wimbledon in 2019.
Federer said, “I barely know Carlos Alcaraz so I’m really excited to see him play for the very first time. I only practiced once with him at Wimbledon when he was still a junior, and then the next day, my coach said, ‘Do you want to warm up with him again?’ and I said, ‘No, it’s okay, I’d rather warm up with his coach, who was my generation, Juan Carlos Ferrero.’ I can apologize to Carlos this week!”
Of course, top players practice against an untold number of young players. Maybe those young players are capable of becoming great, but just as many end up not having much of a professional career at all. Federer could not have known for sure that Alcaraz would become the player he has. There is likely no apology needed by Carlos Alcaraz.
