Barcelona Open: Carlos Alcaraz debuts against tennis player from $1,000 service

After losing the final in Monte Carlo and, at the same time, the top spot in the ATP rankings, Carlos Alcaraz returns to the home air in an attempt to redeem his bad moment. The Spaniard is the No. 1 seed at the Barcelona Open. The goal is to win it, taking advantage of the absence of Jannik Sinner, who took a few days off after his recent successes.

Curiously, Carlos Alcaraz will make his debut in the Spanish tournament against the $100o serving tennis player, namely Otto Virtanen. The 24-year-old Finnish player, in fact, participated in June 2022 in the “Return a Pro Tennis Serve, Win $1000” program, which, as the title suggests, challenged any aspiring tennis player, regardless of level of play, to respond to the serve of a professional, in this case Otto Virtanen.

Obviously, no challenger succeeded in the feat of answering Otto Virtanen’s serve. The Finnish player netted a series of aces that were enough for him to pocket the $1,000 prize. The feeling is that with Carlos Alcaraz it will not be the same.

For Otto Virtanen this will be his first appearance in the main draw at the Barcelona Open, a tournament he had already attempted to enter in 2023, when he was eliminated in the qualifiers by Lorenzo Giustino. Fate put him in front of Carlos Alcaraz, the No. 1 favorite to win the tournament.