Country: Brazil
Born: 22 May 1984 (São José do Rio Preto, Brazil)
Lives: São José do Rio Preto, Brazil
Plays: right hand (double handed backhand)
Career High: 95

I've just heard Alves had beaten Edouard Roger-Vasselin 7-5 3-6 6-3 in the second round of Roland Garros qualification. One thing we surely can assume is that this victory came with a lot of “garra,” which in Portuguese means a lot of effort. Alves just overcame a local French player in clay, which is not his favourite surface. This kind of display is the trademark of this Brazilian, who in his carrer has had a lot of problems and some comebacks, but with a lot of effort always made possible his ressurgement, and who will have his 27th birthday just on the day he plays the final round of qualies.

The first time I actually heard of Alves was twelve years ago, when I was a 10-year-old kid wanting to play tennis. At that time my school friend just told me his older cousin was a great tennis player and that he decided to become a pro. And what a surprise to know was that, indeed, Alves turned out not to be just a good tennis player but also a very good professional player. Born at the city of São Jose do Rio Preto, a city which is located inside são Paulo state, he was offered a good quality of life and some good opportunities to play sports. Alves started playing at the Palestra Club at five years old (a club where curiously there are only clay courts), inspired by his aunt. Just as made 14 years old Alves decided to become a professional player. As he was 16-year-old Alves won an important junior competition, the Banana Bowl, and started dreaming about a succesful career, at the same time he had the opportunity to train with Gustavo Kuerten at 2000 Roland Garros.

Problems and Comebacks

But as we know a tennis life is not easy. Alves basically came without any kind of previous tennis history in his family and somehow struggled a bit in the beggining. Just as a country boy struggles sometimes when he moves to the big city, Brazilians tennis players have a lot of problems to evolve after junior events. There are not many high-level competition in South America and it is very expensive to travel around the globe. To make things worse, Alves suffered a shoulder injury at 2003, and only started to play challengers after this injury. He says that he matured a lot while injured, and learned to conciliate better the personal and tennis life.

Alves prefers to play on the hard courts, because he doesn´t like to put much top spin in his shots. He is fast, with great mobility, he has some flat strokes that work very well at high altitude events, but basically can´t do more than that because he is not very tall. So with this kind of hard court flat strokes baseline game is that Alves collected good results around some South American and North American challengers.

In 2006 he finally had his breakthrough season winning 40 matches and two titles in challengers and made a secound round at US Open cracking the top100 mark. He told some local friends he won the biggest prize in his carrer (almost 27,000 US$), which was said that was spent on a brand new car. Unfortunately it is also said that someone very close to him smashed his car into some wall (his girlfriend??- some Rio Preto guy told me after that women always brought problems) at the beggining of 2007 season, making he slip back in the rankings because of that (I hope that to not be true). Now, he is again, with a lot of effort, trying to coemback to the top 100.

He is currently living again in São José do Rio Preto (after living a bit in Florianopolis, Kuerten's homeplace), where his father has a marble/granite company, and I believe that if he makes again a good run in challengers like in 2006 he can again enter the top 100, and try to finally make a more constant run in ATP tournaments. Maybe he can join Marcos Daniel and Thomaz Bellucci as a journeyman in the circuit, earning higher prizes and trying to pull some more wins for Brazil. Alves made a good match against Federer reaching again the secound round of US OPEN at 2008, where he lost 3-6 5-7 4-6. It was nice to see him running to every ball Federer gave him, doing some smart plays and making the ex-number one to commit a lot of errors. Alves may not have the most complete game or powerful strokes at the cicuit, but his “garra” is his trademark, and he has some chances to yet make his best year in the circuit. People of Rio Preto is certainly cheering for “Little Thiago” show yet again some signs of his 2006 strong performance, because for them he is always improving (anyway, I don´t live there anymore, so I´m always improving myself too; according to them).

Maybe in the future Alves will be able to sell more marble from his father and create a tennis court of granite. He could win more money than in his entire career by doing that, although he said he would prefer to continue working with sports. At least his sister is a lawyer, so family Alves are running in the business.

Ilovetheblues

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