July 5, 2023, is my brother’s 50th birthday. I will be 50 in a few years. I am getting old. My mother is 81 years old, and I see how daily life is much more of a struggle for her than it was just 10 years ago, not to mention 30 or 40 years ago. Getting old is not for the faint of heart. I am in no hurry to live as a senior citizen.
Know what else is hard, however? Being young. One or two more years on this planet will, under ideal circumstances, give young athletes enough wisdom and composure to handle every situation with more clarity. Carlos Alcaraz doesn’t have everything figured out just yet, but much as Rafael Nadal learned at a very early age how to be a complete professional tennis player, Alcaraz has put a lot of pieces together, and he turned 20 just two months ago. He might have problems playing Novak Djokovic at this Wimbledon tournament, but he is clearly better than every other player on tour. Three months ago, he was still a teenager.
That’s exceptional, not normal.
For Sebastian Korda and Felix Auger-Aliassime, stardom was not supposed to arrive at age 20 or 21 the way it has for Alcaraz, but at age 21, both had shown what was possible.
It seemed only a matter of time for both players. With a few more years of seasoning, a few more years of learning the nuances of competition and performance under pressure, these young men had a chance to evolve into top-tier players.
In 2021, Korda battled Karen Khachanov, a very good tennis player, in the middle rounds of Wimbledon. His serve just didn’t have enough bite to finish that match. Give him a few years of building his body and strengthening his shots, and he would be a much more complete player.
In 2021, Felix Auger-Aliassime reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open before losing to Daniil Medvedev. That was 22 months ago. The talent and the physical tools were there. Just give everything a little more time to develop, and Felix was going to be in the top tier — not where Alcaraz or Djokovic are, but a player who would regularly be in the mix for quarterfinals and semifinals at the biggest tournaments, consistently having a chance to do something special.
Here we are, in July of 2023. Korda just did turn 2023 — on July 5 — and Felix turns 23 in one month, on August 8. It’s true that they have both gone through periods of injury which have interrupted their progressions, but they have still accumulated a lot of experiences in the two years since the summer of 2021, when they both made notable impressions on tour.
They are both out of Wimbledon, both licking their wounds after enduring losses they frankly shouldn’t have suffered, against players they should be handling.
We keep waiting for Dominic Thiem to turn the corner, hoping it might still happen, but that’s a different story. Thiem is in his 30s, and even if he never becomes a great player again, his achievements in the sport are considerable. Korda and Felix are still waiting for their big moments on center stage, and after watching opportunities slide through their fingers at Wimbledon, they are beginning to enter their mid-20s, the period of career when — if nothing happens in the next two to three years — there will be serious concerns about whether their careers are ever going to fulfill their promise.
Getting old is hard. Sebastian Korda and Felix Auger-Aliassime wish that they could play with the wisdom and self-assurance of older players. They haven’t yet found that secret sauce. They hope that two years from now, they won’t be wondering where their careers — and lost time — have gone.
Tennis with an Accent 