Mattia Bellucci on being ‘surprised’ by a teenage Carlos Alcaraz

ATP Tour

Inside the moment Bellucci was surprised by 16-year-old Acaraz

Italian faces World No. 2 Alcaraz again on Wednesday at US Open

Mike Lawrence/ATP Tour Mattia Bellucci is No. 65 in the PIF ATP Rankings. By Andy West

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.”

On Wednesday night in New York, the current No. 65 in the PIF ATP Rankings Bellucci will take on five-time major champion Alcaraz in front of considerably more than the ‘20 or 30 people’ he remembers watching their 2020 encounter. The pair will take to the 23,000-capacity Arthur Ashe Stadium for a Wednesday night second-round clash at the US Open.

“I feel that these are the matches that everyone wants to play, definitely,” said Bellucci on Monday after earning just his fourth Grand Slam match win against Shang Juncheng in the opening round. “I remember walking on [Arthur Ashe Stadium] for the first time when I first played qualifying here, and that was one of the things that I remember to be more emotional.

“I remember crying looking at it, because it is so big. It was crazy, and I remember talking to my coach and saying, ‘Maybe one day we will be here’. That’s the same coach I have now, so it will be a dream to play on that court. I really feel that I need to enjoy it, but at the same time I need to remember that the last time I played on a very big stage, on Court 1 at Wimbledon against Cameron Norrie, I was not able to handle the pressure very well.”

With life intense on the court, Bellucci has interests away from tennis that help him relax. They include a passion for Japanese culture (some of the Italian’s tattoos are in Japanese style) and watching films (he cites Vietnam War movies as he his favourite genre), while he is currently in the perfect place for another of his hobbies: shopping for vintage clothing.

“Here in New York is a great place to be for vintage shopping,” said Bellucci. “Vintage is not very easy in Italy. It’s kind of difficult to find places so I’m always online buying vintage stuff. New York is one of the best places, along with Tokyo. There are some other players that are interested too, and we share information. Rei Sakamoto the Japanese player is one of them. He really likes it as well.”

On Wednesday, Bellucci will be more focused on rousing a vintage performance in his maiden Lexus ATP Head clash with Alcaraz. It will be another big test for the Italian in what has been a curious year: His highlights have included reaching an ATP 500 semi-final as a qualifier in Rotterdam (beating Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas en route), but the lows include losing nine matches in a row from April to June.

“That is definitely not easy,” said Bellucci of that tough streak, but he is also clear on what he has learnt so far in his first season as a Top 100 player. “I really feel that my team is helping me and I really like the people I have around. They are cool people, and I love spending time with them.

“I’ve also understood that I have to ask for what I need, because otherwise they cannot imagine what I need. Maybe the best thing that I can say is that I normally rush things a lot, but I have to take a little bit of time for results to come, because I think I’m working in a good manner. Hopefully that is going to help me.”

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