Hungarian Legend Taroczy Reflects On Marozsan’s ‘Incredible’ Alcaraz Win

Hungarian Fabian Marozsan’s win against Carlos Alcaraz on Monday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia stunned the tennis world. One of the best Hungarian players in history, Balazs Taroczy, was thrilled with the result.

“It’s an incredible win and it’s an incredible tournament for Fabian,” Taroczy told ATPTour.com. “He had some tough matches and since that he’s winning match after match. Very tough matches. I saw the one against [Jiri] Lehecka. He was down 4/2 in the third-set tie-break and it was 7/4 and I heard that he did the same thing today in the second set.

“It’s an amazing achievement and I think very, very [big] of course to beat Alcaraz when everybody’s just talking that nobody can win sets anymore against him. And suddenly there is an unknown kid from Hungary killing him. That’s fantastic.”

Taroczy understands what it takes to succeed on the world’s biggest stages. He climbed to No. 12 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings and No. 3 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings, both in the 1980s. The Hungarian partnered Heinz Gunthardt to the 1985 Wimbledon men’s doubles title.

Marozsan is competing in an ATP Tour main draw for the first time.

“I think the whole story is incredible already. I think for him to be in the qualifying of an ATP Masters 1000 tournament was a great achievement. And I think this shows the depth of men’s tennis,” Taroczy said. “Kids, once they get there they can show how good they are. They can make incredible things so I’m sure that it must have given him a lot of confidence that he is much better than he was until now, which was not bad.

“Still he was playing only Challenger tournaments and I don’t know where he is going to jump from now. But he’s very young and very talented, so hopefully he’s going to make great results.”

Taroczy had not seen Marozsan play before his big run in Rome. However, he follows the results of Hungarian players and saw his potential with two big Davis Cup doubles wins. Marozsan partnered Mate Valkusz past Australians John Peers and Luke Saville last year before defeating Frenchmen Nicolas Mahut and Arthur Rinderknech this year.

“They had two incredible wins in the doubles in the Davis Cup,” Taroczy said. “I think [it] always shows if you are good for me when somebody’s good in Davis Cup and he’s doing surprise wins. [It] shows that he can play because it’s an extra pressure.”

Taroczy pointed out Marozsan was “very gutsy” in the final-set tie-break he played in the second round against 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals runner-up Jiri Lehecka. The Hungarian legend called his younger countryman a “great competitor”.

One of the players Marozsan has been able to look up to and learn from is Hungarian No. 1 Marton Fucsovics, who reached World No. 31 in 2019. Taroczy explained that having a role model like Fucsovics has been important for the new generation of players from his country.

“Very, very, very important. And as you said, for a long time, it was Marton in Davis Cup and those tournaments that he was winning,” Taroczy said. “We have three very good promising younger guys: Mate Valkusz, Zsombor Piros, they [did well] in juniors. Both those two. And then Fabian Maroszan. They are all very talented, aged about 23 [Valkusz is 24. And I’m sure that their achievements and their goals are really set because they saw that Marton Fucsovics did.

“Already for I think almost 10 years he’s been around at the big tournaments and in Davis Cup, he was always [playing] very well. So it is always very important to have an idol for the younger generations. I’m sure now the other two are going to be trying much harder. Because now they really see that it’s worth [it] to try.”