'Vamos, Carlitos!'

Follow Carlos Alcaraz on his debut at the ABN AMRO Open 2025 and you’re bound to burst out laughing every day. No matter whom he passes by in Rotterdam Ahoy, almost everyone recognises the Spaniard and instantly starts chanting 'Carlos, Carlos' enthusiastically.

It’s obviously to the greatest pleasure of the 21-year-old tennis icon from Murcia, whose hearty laugh is never long in coming. For all those fans of the current world number 3 in the tennis rankings, there is also good news. To be fair, things would have had to go very strangely if he did not qualify for the quarterfinals today, to play on the fourth day of the tournament.

'Carlitos' is the big crowd favourite this year in Rotterdam-Zuid, and has the easiest second-round match on paper so far. This is just how surprising tennis can be at times: the highest-ranked player in the ATP 500 tournament meets the Italian Andrea Vavassori tonight, the lowest-ranked player, not even ranked in the top 300, who until now was best known as a doubles player.

Vavassori, a tour veteran at 29, exceptionally registered for the singles qualification in Rotterdam and succeeded in qualifying for the main draw. It didn't stop there for him: in the first round of the tournament, he was drawn into a match-up against the Canadian Félix Auger-Aliassime, who just happened to have suffered a toe injury the day before their meeting. The winner of the tournament in Montpellier last week and 2022 ABN AMRO Open champion won the first set, but then retired after losing the second. And this might be good news for those numerous Alcaraz fans in the Netherlands: 'Vamos, Carlitos!'