Mark Lajal: The Estonian who dreamt of racing now plays Alcaraz at Wimbledon

Estonian Mark Lajal was in a car on his way to site Friday, the day after he qualified for Wimbledon. The 21-year-old was enjoying the ride with his mother, coach and the driver, when he received a shock.

“My friend was looking at the live draw when they were picking the [players] and I remember they called, 'Carlos Alcaraz will play'... and it was like, 'Number 122, Mark Lajal',” he told ATPTour.com. “We all started screaming, everyone screamed in our car. I got scared because they started screaming and then it was, 'Oh my, I'm playing Carlos'.”

The No. 262 player in the PIF ATP Rankings will enjoy a memorable welcome to major main draw action. In his first three attempts to qualify for a Grand Slam tournament, Lajal lost in the first round. Now not only has he qualified, but the Estonian will open the event on Centre Court against the defending champion.

“I don't know if it really has sunk in yet because it's incredible. Once I qualified, obviously, it's a big thing to qualify for me and one of my goals this year was to qualify for a Grand Slam,” Lajal said. “For my first time, I wanted to play someone big, have a big first match. But for some reason, Carlos never crossed my mind. So when I saw Carlos, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm playing Carlos’.

“Then my friend told me, ‘You know, you're going to be opening Centre Court’. I was like, ‘Wait, that's true!’ That's tradition. So for me, that's just unbelievable. I'm going to be playing against Carlos on Centre Court as my first match. I don't know if it's sunk in yet. But I'm quite excited, honestly.”

After learning the draw, Lajal was at Wimbledon training venue Aorangi Park with his team. They passed by a court on which Alcaraz was practising with Flavio Cobolli.

“Cobolli hit a huge winner, and then we started to leave,” Lajal said. “Juan Carlos [Ferrero], he comes to me, and he says, ‘Don't do that on Monday’. I started laughing.”

Lajal and Alcaraz had not met until Saturday, when they briefly crossed paths during Media Day at SW19. The Spaniard is a three-time major champion, while the Estonian is preparing for his first main draw match at a Slam.

It is an exciting moment for a player who was not born to play tennis, but to race. Lajal’s father, Mart, was a motocross rider. His grandfather, Hardi Mets, was a rally driver. Mark’s favourite racer was motocross star Antonio Cairoli. Now he enjoys following his countryman, rally driver Ott Tanak and Formula One star Max Verstappen.

“I don't remember exactly at what age I started driving. I think I was like three, so I was quite young. But I started off at like two years old, two and a half, I was riding bicycles already, little ones, so I was basically born into it,” Lajal said. “And then my dad put me there and I had my little motorcycle, and I was just doing laps around the house out in the garden. And then as I got older, obviously I grew, I got bigger motorcycles. I was not pushed into it, but it was just a part of the family. It was normal for us to do it.”

Lajal raced in Estonia and was set on following the path his family had paved. But when he was still young, his father went on a trip and everything changed.

“My mom didn't want to put me into motocross, so she put me into tennis [while he was away] and that's how we got started,” Lajal said. “I was doing both at the same time. And then as time went on, I kind of just started racing less and playing tennis more. And then at one point, I was just like, ‘I like tennis. I want to play tennis’. My parents were super welcoming. They were like, ‘Yeah, go for it’.”

To this day, Lajal remembers his first tennis practice vividly.

“I was really proud of it. First of all, I was playing right-handed and left-handed, so I had two forehands basically,” Lajal said. “Then after the forehand, I would be spinning after every shot. I just remember the first one really clearly and I was really proud of it. I came home and I was like, ‘Mom, look at my forehand!’”

By 10, Lajal was competing on a national level and was one of the best Estonians in his age group. He played junior tournaments in countries like Finland and Latvia before travelling more starting at 12. Two years later, Lajal moved to the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, run by Patrick Mouratoglou. He is still based there today.

“From there obviously I got even more dedicated and more serious, but it took longer than I would have liked for me to become actually focused and dedicated,” Lajal said. “At 14, 15, I was still a little bit all over the place and it's normal when you're young, but I think at 16 and 17, that's really when I started really doing my stuff.”

Estonia is not known for its rich tennis history. WTA standout Kaia Kanepi has waved her country’s flag throughout her career. Jurgen Zopp did so on the ATP side, reaching a career-high World No. 71 in 2012. Zopp advanced to the third round at Roland Garros in 2018, but never won a match at Wimbledon.

“Seeing those two amazing players coming from a small country, obviously it's an inspiration to all of us. But I'd say more, it was Jurgen,” Lajal said. “I was watching him on TV. He was a legend in Estonia. He was big.”

If Lajal defeats Alcaraz, who is one week his elder, he will become the third man in history to upset the defending champion in the first round at Wimbledon and the second Estonian man in history to reach the second round of The Championships.

For those unfamiliar with last year’s Little Rock ATP Challenger Tour champion, he brings a vibrant personality and noticeable energy to the court. “I'm an honest person. I say what I feel. The way I am on court and the way I am outside of court, I'm just my authentic self,” he said.

Fans will also quickly notice his light blonde dreads. The hairstyle back to his early childhood.

“When I was six, my half sister, she did dreads and I was so fascinated. I was like, ‘Mom, I want it, I want it, I need it’. My mom was like it's just hair, just do it for the summer. So I did it and I loved it and I stayed with it,” Lajal said. “So it's been with me for a long, long, long time. It has changed, shorter, longer. At one time it was really long and then I cut it off. Now it's funny also, because every single one of my pro matches, I've always played with a hat. And then I had a bad tan line here from the hat.

“I was getting so frustrated. I was just like, ‘I have a week of practice. I'm just going to put up the hair and just get rid of the tanline’. And I kind of just enjoyed it and went with it. And then I was just like, ‘You know what, it's Wimbledon, you've got to make something different. If there's a place to make something different, it's Wimbledon’.”

It is a tournament known far beyond the tennis world. Lajal received a tour of the venue from a member of the event’s player relations team and noticed the quote from Rudyard Kipling’s poem If that is displayed above the entrance to Centre Court:

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same”

“A lot of players touch the thing before they go on court. And you could see there's one part that is just used. You can see the wear on it, so I was like I guess this is where to touch it, so I touched it. It's nice,” Lajal said. “I was really happy. But at the same time, I thought to myself, ‘Okay, I've qualified. It's good. But technically the tournament is just getting started. It's just the beginning’. So I was happy for I'd say an hour. And then I was back to it. So we celebrated a little bit in the evening, we had a pizza. And then the next day, I was back to it.”