Andy Roddick recently opined that Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz would have been good players even if they did not have access to great facilities and coaching growing up. Roddick also talked about the likes of Ben Shelton, Emma Navarro, and Danielle Collins, and how they are players who benefited from developing within a good system.
Carlos Alcaraz is still only 21, but he has already established himself as one of the elite men's tennis players. The Spaniard, widely regarded for his entertaining style of play, has four Major titles and five Masters 1000s to his name. Meanwhile, on the women's side, 20-year-old Coco Gauff continues to impress. She won her maiden Grand Slam title at the 2023 US Open and recently won the year-end WTA Finals.
Former ATP World No. 1 Andy Roddick, in a recent admission on the Served With Andy Roddick podcast, stated that Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz are the types of players who would have been successful regardless of the system they grew up in. However, Roddick did admit that Alcaraz's phenomenal rise to the top has been facilitated to a significant extent by the Spaniard's coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero.
"Coco Gauff was always going to be Coco Gauff, in any system, in tennis. Carlos Alcaraz, maybe Ferrero expedited it and made him great. Carlos Alcaraz was going to be top 20 if a ham sandwich was coaching him. Now Ferrero has expedited the process and made him already a living legend at 21 years old. So Ferrero's value-add can't be measured, right?" Roddick said. (at 40:04).
The 2003 US Open champion went on to shed light on how Ben Shelton, Emma Navarro, and Danielle Collins are the types of players who are thriving now because they developed a system that was designed to produce quality tennis players.
"Now what we've seen, a big change, give me the common ground between Ben Shelton, Emma Navarro, Danielle Collins, what's the cheat code there and what are the similarities with what I was discussing before? A lot of access to playing against other talented people, low cost for improvement, you're not having to make a massive investment and good coaching, consistent coaching, not flipping coaches," Roddick added.
Earlier this year, Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz traded laughs after their respective title triumphs at the China Open.
Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz poked fun at each other following their China Open 2024 successes
In the buildup to the 2024 China Open, Gauff and Alcaraz visited Beijing's Forbidden City and posed for the cameras together sporting Hanfu, traditional Chinese clothes. After Alcaraz won the men's singles title at the event and Gauff reached the women's singles final, the latter was asked if the Forbidden City visit brought the duo luck. The 2023 US Open champion answered in the affirmative.
Later, after Gauff herself emerged victorious in the women's singles final, she and Alcaraz had a good laugh related to their Forbidden City experience. The Spaniard hilariously suggested that both of them should have been in traditional Chinese clothes during their respective trophy presentation ceremonies. The American agreed.
Alcaraz wrote in an Instagram Story, tagging Gauff:
“Congrats!! 🥳 We should’ve dressed like that in the ceremony as well….😂🤪
Gauff replied:
“Haha we should have 🤣 and thank you!”
Alcaraz finished 2024 as the year-end World No. 3, while Gauff secured the same position on the WTA side.