The ITF’s Class of 2021 series recognises and celebrates players who have had a successful year progressing along the ITF player pathway, and beyond. The third of five categories being unveiled this week identifies two players who kicked on from ITF events and broke through in style at the top level of the sport in 2021

At the turn of the year, you could be forgiven for saying “Emma Raducanwho?” or mis-associating Carlos Alcaraz with a San Francisco-based detention facility.

But it was the formidable Alcaraz, not Alcatraz, that put fear among men in 2021, while Raducanu became a name so-frequently voiced that even those stranded on that famously inescapable Island might have caught it on the wind.

A year that began with Raducanu preparing for her A-levels and only partially focussed on tennis ended with the 19-year-old collecting the US Open trophy, the world No. 19 ranking and, best of all (perhaps) an A* in Maths and an A in Economics.

Alcaraz, too, dazzled in New York, becoming the youngest man in 31 years to reach the quarter-finals at a Grand Slam and completing his big breakthrough year in style by finishing the year just outside the Top 30.

Emma Raducanu

Raducanu had been touted as a player of great promise within British tennis circles for some time, but few – or more realistically: nobody – could have predicted what was to transpire in 2021.

With schoolwork still taking priority and her appearances on the ITF World Tennis Tour limited as a result of the pandemic (she didn’t play any ITF tournaments in the 15 months between March 2020 and June 2021), Raducanu turned up for the British grass court season as a hugely unknown entity.

Her performances in Nottingham did little to change that – a first round loss to Harriet Dart as a wild card at the WTA international event followed a promising quarter-final run at the same venue on the ITF World Tennis Tour, but it was at Wimbledon where she burst into public consciousness.

Thriving on home soil, she overcame Vitalia Diatchenko in straight sets for her first Tour-level match win, before sweeping aside two formidable Top 50 players in Marketa Vondrousova and Sorana Cirstea to the delight – and mass media interest – of the host nation.

The scale of her achievement caught up with her somewhat in round four, when she retired while trailing Alja Tomljanovic 6-4 3-0 in an evening match on Centre Court, but Toronto-born Raducanu, who has a Romanian father and Chinese mother, was quick to bounce back despite the background buzz of her newfound fame.

She travelled to the US and reached the quarter-finals at W100 Landisville before finishing a runner-up to fellow emerging talent Clara Tauson at the WTA 125K series event in Chicago. What came next will be written into folklore.

Ten consecutive match wins, all in straight sets, for a qualifier ranked at No. 150 in the world inexplicably earned the then-18-year-old her first Grand Slam title in New York. Raducanu's triumph was utterly stunning in so many ways, for the quality and assuredness of her play, for her infectious smile and joy every step of the way, and for the thrilling theatre she delivered in the final along with fellow inspiring teenager Leylah Fernandez, ultimately sealing victory with a serve out wide from the ad side that she had “missed all match”.

“2021 was an incredible year with so many great memories from Wimbledon to New York,” Raducanu reflected this week. “That moment, landing the ace on the last point of the US Open final will stay with me forever.

“I’m just very grateful for the generous support I’ve received and I’m really looking forward to learning more in 2022.”

Raducanu’s rise in 2021 left a trail of positive feeling that can only suggest the sport is in safe hands in the years ahead. Best of all, she announced her arrival with an inexplicably dramatic, giant-killing journey to the highest heights of the sport – and she took us all along for the ride.

Carlos Alcaraz

This time last year, Carlos Alcaraz featured in the ITF Class of 2020 as 'one to watch', and there’s no doubt the Spaniard has delivered on his promise in style this year.

Alcaraz climbed 109 spots through 2021 to end the season at a career-high No. 32 after winning his first Tour-level title in Umag and reaching his maiden Grand Slam quarter-final at the US Open – all while still just 18 years old.

A junior Davis Cup champion with Spain in 2018, Alcaraz’s 2021 season ended in unfortunate style when he tested positive for Covid-19, denying him the dream of leading his country at the Davis Cup by Rakuten Finals in Madrid, but that was the only downside of an incredible breakthrough season on the ATP Tour.

The Murcia native, who is coached by former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, began the year in the tone that he would continue it, winning four straight matches to qualify - and reach round two - at a Grand Slam for the first time at the Australian Open.

Naturally the Spaniard ramped up his results on the clay, where he went on to reach the semi-finals at the ATP 250 event in Marbella and won an ATP Challenger title in Oeiras, before reeling off five match-wins at Roland Garros where he would fall in round three, as a qualifier, to Jan-Lennard Struff.

The (fruitless and largely unfair) comparisons between Alcaraz and his idol, Rafael Nadal, began to flow more freely after he collected his first ATP title on the clay in Umag, where he became the youngest Spaniard to win an ATP title since the 20-time Grand Slam champion 17 years earlier.

Unphased by those lingering assessments, Alcaraz continued to follow his own path and went on to enjoy an excellent US swing, reaching the semi-finals in Winston-Salem ahead of a stunning run at the US Open.

In a tournament already dazzling with exciting young players, Alcaraz shone brightest in the men’s event in New York with victories over the in-form Cameron Norrie in the first round and world No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third, where he produced the first of back-to-back five-set triumphs en route to the quarter-finals.

The youngest man to reach the last eight at a Grand Slam in 31 years (since Michael Chang at 1990 Roland Garros) finally succumbed to his physical inexperience when he was forced to retire a set-and-a-half into his quarter-final clash with Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Two further Top 10 wins (not to mention a victory over three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray) followed before the year was out, with Matteo Berrettini falling victim to Alcaraz in the Vienna quarter-finals before fellow Italian Jannik Sinner followed suit at the Paris Masters.

“It has been a really good season for me,” Alcaraz reflected. “I am really happy about the moments I have experienced. Beating Tsitsipas at the US Open, reaching the quarter-finals at a Grand Slam and winning my first ATP title. There were lots of matches that gave me a lot of experience to make me more mature.”

No longer an emerging talent to look out for, Alcaraz proved in 2021 that he has well and truly arrived.