Challenger Florence - Rafa 2.0 gaining ground

Spanish Sensation

If you have been following the tennis tours on a daily basis, you should have come across the name of Carlos Alcaraz Garfia quite a lot this year. The 16-year-old is one of the biggest prospects in tennis right now, and excels on clay courts. Watching him play brings back memories of another Spaniard who had early success in his career and who calls himself a 19-time Grand Slam champion.

It's no surprise that Alcaraz is being compared to his idol Rafa Nadal. The intensity and fitness he transfers onto the court is outstanding for a player of such a young age. His defense is exceptional, and he's improving when it comes to aggressiveness.

When he was 12, Alcaraz was signed by the IMG Academy where Albert Molina, who also supported Nadal, Ferrer and others early in their careers, took care of him. Last year, he was hitting balls with Juan Carlos Ferrero and joined his academy in Alicante. In August this year, Ferrero and Alcaraz decided to work together even more intensely and the former world #1 is now Alcaraz' coach and accompanies him at the events he's playing.

Crashing Clay Court Challengers

The first tournament they travelled to together was the Challenger in L'Aquila, Italy. Alcaraz reached the second round, where he lost a tough battle to Frederico Ferreira Silva after beating Christopher O'Connell in the first round.

After losing his first round match in Mallorca the following week, he went on a big run in Seville two weeks ago. He beat back to back top 200 players in Yannick Hanfmann and Pedro Martinez before finally succumbing to Salvatore Caruso in a match he was leading 6-4 5-2.

Talent Gap

Even though that was a collapse, this is something young players have to experience. It was his maiden Challenger quarterfinal and it's only human to get nervy when achieving something big for the first time.

Fighting nerves is something his opponent today, Stefano Napolitano from Italy, is also familiar with. He has lost a lot of close matches in which he was leading throughout his career. Napolitano's biggest achievement is a Challenger win on indoor hard courts in Ortisei back in 2016. That being said, he has never been a huge clay court player. His clay numbers are the worst of all surfaces and he's only winning 50% of his matches on the red dirt.

He has 8 wins and 11 losses so far this year, with his most recent result being a second round in Biella last week, where he beat Markus Eriksson 6-4 6-4 before losing 4-6 2-6 to Jaume Munar.

All things considered, I'm not sure why Napolitano is the favorite in this matchup. The home crowd might push him, but they were also quite supportive to the Spanish wunderkind a few weeks ago. Struggling in close matches is not the best formula against a young kid that doesn't give up on any balls. With his improved serve and developing aggression, Alcaraz should have the edge in rallies.

Although bookies do appreciate the teenager, I believe that Alcaraz is already a step ahead of Napolitano. I'm getting a great price and betting the Spaniard to beat the Italian.