Juan Carlos Prado Angelo still remembers the moment it all felt different.
Racquet in hand, trading groundstrokes with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, the young Bolivian sensed something beyond pace, power or technique.
“Alcaraz and Sinner are something different, something special,” Prado Angelo told ATPTour.com in Jeddah. “You feel their aura. You feel nervous, but it’s a really good experience. It is memorable. It was the ‘Wow’ moment I had been waiting for.”
That moment came in 2024 at the Nitto ATP Finals, where Prado Angelo served as a sparring partner at the sport’s most exclusive stage. For a-then 19-year-old, it offered a vivid glimpse of what the future could hold.
Now in Jeddah as an alternate at the 2025 Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF, the World No. 209 Prado Angelo finds himself among the game’s rising elite, a long way from his earliest days in the sport 13 years ago. Because tennis was never supposed to be his game. Growing up in Bolivia, football ruled everything.
“I started playing at seven, seven and a half. It was a surprise because no one in my family played tennis,” Prado Angelo said, looking across the practice courts in Jeddah. “We just happened to move to a place that had a court and from then I started.”
Like many South American kids, his schedule revolved around football. Tennis fit into the gaps but by the time he was 11 or 12, the choice became unavoidable. Both sports demanded full commitment, travel and sacrifice.
“I was doing football Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and tennis Tuesday, Thursday. I liked it so much,” he said. “Tennis felt a little bit easy for me at the beginning, and I was good, so I started liking it.
“My tennis coach then said I had to choose, and my football coach too. My father wanted to kill me when I said tennis. We are a very football-mad place. But I choose tennis and part of that was down to Federer. I just loved watching him and he was my idol.”
He chose tennis, a decision that quietly set him on a path few Bolivians have travelled. Prado Angelo quickly became the leading junior in his country, winning tournaments and gaining attention through South America’s junior circuit.
“I was always number one in Bolivia,” Prado Angelo said. “Then at 14, I qualified for a tour in Europe. After that, things started going very well. I started playing ITFs and didn’t really play many under-16s. It just kept going.”
Central to that journey has been a long-standing relationship with coach Hermann Ritter, who runs an academy in Santa Cruz.
“I’ve had the same coach the whole time,” Prado Angelo said. “Now he’s almost only with me. Sometimes he’s traveling, sometimes he’s at the academy, but he’s always there. Having that support and connection is so special.”
While Bolivia and Santa Cruz, to be exact, remains home, Prado Angelo now spends much of his training time in Argentina, where he has found both high-level competition and a tight-knit group of peers.
“I train half the time in Argentina now,” he said. “They all live there, so when we’re there we train every day. We’re really close friends. We go out to dinner, everything. I find my level is high when I play with them and then winning the Challenger Tour title in Lima reinforced that belief. I am enjoying that setup.”
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In Jeddah, Prado Angelo has spent time keeping the eight competitors warm, hitting with players he is familiar with. Many of the Next Gen ATP Finals contenders are players he’s known since childhood.
“We know each other from when we were little,” he said. “I played Prizmic in under-14s. I played Learner and Junior. We have a very good relationship. I had a tough loss to Prizmic in the Roland Garros boys’ singles final in 2023, so our rivalries go way back.”
Watching from the sidelines, the Bolivian has been struck by the level and the conditions in Jeddah.
“I’m not that used to playing indoors,” Prado Angelo said. “In South America it’s not very common. But I love this experience, training with them. I’d like to play at the top level more in the future. I think I can do well and have the game with my aggressive forehand.”
The immediate roadmap after Jeddah is demanding. Australian Open qualifying awaits, along with Challengers in Europe and Davis Cup commitments.
“My goals are to try to play all four Grand Slams, go inside the Top 200 and stay there,” the 20-year-old said. “Start playing bigger tournaments. Playing at the ATP event in Santiago would be an aim this coming year.”
Being an alternate in Jeddah may not bring match play, but the experience has still been invaluable.
“It feels like a different tournament for us,” Prado Angelo said. “The treatment, the people, it makes us feel like real players. Training with so many good players here has been great. Now I go back to South America, continue training, and then go to Australia.”
For Prado Angelo, the journey from a football-mad Bolivian childhood to sharing courts with tennis’s biggest stars is already extraordinary. Now the 20-year-old will try to continue his journey upward.
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