Building Alexander Blockx: #NextGenATP Belgian childhood spark fueled ‘unbelievable passion’ | ATP Tour

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Building Blockx: #NextGenATP Belgian childhood spark ignited ‘unbelievable passion’

Insights from a 19-year-old and his longtime coach

September 18, 2024

‘Does this little boy want to try football?’

That was the question that started it all for Alexander Blockx, who started playing tennis at the age of four. Blockx’s brother Maxime, three years his senior, was taking tennis lessons and while Alexander watched on court, coach Philippe Cassiers gave the speech that kicked off the Belgian’s tour of the match.

To this day, Blockx is trained by Cassiers, a partnership of 15 years that has shown great success. Blockx was ranked No. 1 in junior singles and doubles in 2023, the same year he won the Australian Open boys’ singles event.

By competing heavily on the ATP Challenger Tour this season, the 19-year-old is fulfilling his dream as a professional tennis player, a very short time for someone who started tennis almost by accident.

“It wasn’t planned for me, I was just going to see [my brother] a little,” Blockx recalled to ATPtour.com. “Finally when we got there, the coach asked my parents, ‘Does this little boy want to try football?’ I said, ‘Yes’, and I started playing and I didn’t stop.”

Cassiers, who runs a tennis school outside Antwerp, quickly recognized Blockx’s natural ability.

“There was a little boy sitting on the bench next to mom and dad — and that was Alexander,” Cassiers said. “I asked, ‘Do you want to try?’ He stood up and said, ‘Let’s do it’. We threw him a few balls and you could see that he was really determined, ready to play from the start. He wasn’t scared. He was ready to go for it and it was really nice. I spoke to his parents, ‘Maybe we should try to train a younger child’. We have been working ever since.”

Blockx is not the first professional athlete in his family. His father Oleg was a track athlete, excelling in obstacle races while Blockx’s mother Natalia was a professional swimmer.

#NextGenATP youngsters have never played any sport other than tennis. As a child, he was busy dominating tennis tournaments, even above his age group.

“You have big dreams, but the moment I realized that I was good at sports was when I was playing with boys older than me, two or three years older than me. Because compared to my age and a year older, I never lost a match every time we played until I was 14 years old,” said Blockx, who came out 24th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah.

“I first played in the Belgian tournaments. I was winning almost everything and my coach said, ‘Okay, now we’re going to play the senior team’. I started winning everything so we started playing internationally to see how that went. Under 12, I played 45 games and won 42 I think. So we were like, ‘Okay, there’s real power’. When I was 12, I knew I wanted to go in and it might work out.”

Currently number 264 in the PIF ATP Rankings, Blockx has received more attention since the beginning of 2023, when he became the third Belgian junior Slam champion and the first at Melbourne Park. Jacques Brichant (1947) and Kimmer Coppejans (2012) won at Roland Garros.

Alexander Blockx wins 2023 Australian Open junior title.”>
^{Alexander Blockx wins the 2023 Australian Open junior title. Credit: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP via Getty Images}
“It was amazing. And because of the way I won it, it’s 11/9 for the third-set tie-breaker [in the final],” said Blockx. “All week I played good players: [Joao] Fonseca, against the Student [Tien] in the final.”

Blockx has made three semifinal appearances on the ATP Challenger Tour this year, and two of those runs came before suffering a two-month injury in the middle of the season. Blockx was playing his second game in what was supposed to be a five-week Asian ski tour in April when he tore a ligament in his right ankle, sidelining him until mid-July.

Now back to full health, Blockx showed flashes of his best form last week when he made his Davis Cup debut, which he called, “one of the best experiences of my life so far on the tennis court”. Blockx represented his country against Italy and pushed the World No. 6 Matteo Berrettini in three sets.

One key factor in Blockx’s success, according to Cassiers, has been his genuine passion for the game.

“He has an unbelievable passion for tennis,” Cassiers said. “It’s getting more and more obsessive right now. He really got into the game. I have seen many players over the years, and I have never seen a player who loves the game and is so passionate. [with] the desire to improve.

“Off the court, you follow websites, Challenger TV, YouTube and all these things. You can ask him the most difficult questions, ‘In 2020, who played the quarter-final in Madrid?’ Whatever it is, he’ll be able to give you a point-by-point answer. Off the court, he is still busy with tennis stuff.”