He's not the next Nadal. He's the first Carlos Boluda-Purkiss. For that matter, he's better than what Nadal was at his age.

The hype is not for nothing, trust me. He is the sort that can get to the top 10 in the future. But I wish that the press would stop eating his head with the comparisons etc. Things can change very fast.

Franco Davin, who currently coaches Gaudio, won a Tour match when he was 15 and 1 (I'm not joking!), but had a career high of just 30.




But he's not the best 14 year old in the world! No, not by a long margin. Bernard Tomic is far better than him and he's just three months older (albeit in a different year). When Boluda played Sebastian Lavie (who is very good for his age) at Tarbes last year, he defeated him by 76 63. On comparison, Master Tomic double bagelled Lavie when he played him at the Junior Orange Bowl.
Tomic is now ranked 51 in 18s and took a set off a seasoned player like Kevin Botti on Rebound Ace (Tomic is a fast surface player who prefers grass). Boluda will most probably struggle to take two games off people in the top 50.