Watching Carlos Alcaraz made me start — training made me stay

I got into Tennis after watching Carlos Alcaraz compete and thinking I wanted a piece of that. Reality check: what they make look effortless takes years of work. The drop shot I admired on screen took me 15 months just to do passably.

But somewhere in that process I stopped caring about looking like Carlos Alcaraz and started caring about my own progress with reading the opponent's racket face. That shift is when Tennis really got its hooks in me. match play sharpening everything fast is the part nobody sees in the highlights. booking court time at busy clubs is the part nobody mentions either. Both are real. Both are worth knowing.