Cutting Words
Meet Víctor Martínez, the bizarrely polarizing barber of tennis star Carlos Alcaraz.
PARIS, France — Readers of mine, old and new, will know that I don’t shy away from controversial issues or divisive characters in tennis. But even with years of experience running toward the thorniest topics, I cannot recall previously meeting any figure who inspires the consistently impassioned, hyperbolic reactions in the tennis fan community as does the man I interviewed today.
In just the last few hours on Twitter, multiple people called for the man’s arrest, accusing him of “terrorizing people.” They screamed for jail time “for crimes against humanity,” and demanded he be “put on a no fly list.” Many of the messages mentioning his name were outright threats of physical violence against him.
Meeting and chatting with this entirely pleasant and friendly man on Wednesday afternoon at Roland Garros, you’d have no idea he inspires such intense emotions online. And why would anyone expect he could? After all, he’s just a barber from a small village in Spain.
Víctor Martínez—known on social media as “Victor Barber” because of the name of his barbershop and his Instagram handle @victorbarbers5—has been cutting hair for about 10 years, he said in an interview with Bounces.
“I started at home cutting hair for friends and family,” Martínez said, speaking in his native Spanish1. “I liked it. It was comfortable. I knew that if I did things right, I could do well. I’ve done things right, and now I can say things are going well.”
He built his clientele little by little. “I cut one person’s hair, then another calls, then another,” Martínez said. “Eventually, the schedule’s full—week after week.”
Martínez is on vacation in Paris for the rest of this week, but he normally works Monday through Saturday at his shop on Calle Mayor, the main street of El Palmar, near Murcia.
He gained a notable new local customer two years ago, after one of Martínez’s neighbors, José Ramón, referred a close friend who had admired his haircut.
“He wrote to me: ‘Hey, Carlos wants a haircut,’” Martínez recalled. “So they both came to the barbershop.”
The first time Martínez cut Carlos Alcaraz’s hair two years ago, he recalled, he was jittery and anxious.
“I got nervous—I was really nervous—but happy,” Martínez said. “The first time I cut his hair, I couldn’t even use the scissors. My hands were shaking. I was sweating. Now, I’m relaxed, with music on, but the first time? I couldn’t even hold the scissors.”
Alcaraz was clearly satisfied, and has kept coming back to the shop over the last two years, often choosing his own favorite music—Bad Bunny or Drake—to play during his appointments.
“Whenever he travels to Murcia, he always visits me at the barbershop,” Martínez said. “He always comes to get a cut. Sometimes it's every month, other times when he's away longer, it might be two months. But whenever he’s in Murcia, he gets his hair cut.”
Martínez has also cut Alcaraz’s hair outside of his shop on certain occasions, such as when their favorite team, Real Madrid, was playing.
“We even watched a Champions League match together at his house while I was cutting his hair—at 11 PM!” he said.
Alcaraz quickly became a fiercely loyal patron: no one but Martínez has cut his hair in the two years since it was love at first snip. “Only me,” Martínez said. “I’ve even offered to find him a barber wherever he is, and he says no; he waits. ‘I’ll wait until I’m in Murcia, and you’ll cut it.’”
Martínez is here in Paris because defending champion Alcaraz wanted a haircut after his shaggier first round match on Monday; he showed up for his second round clean-shaven with the sides of his head closely in his now-signature fade.
“I'm lucky he could come here to Paris, watch a few of my matches,” Alcaraz said Wednesday when I asked him about Martínez. “Just [told him] that he has to bring, you know, the materials to cut my hair that I needed. I think everybody saw my hair, my beard. So I had to do something about it.”
Alcaraz was smiling broadly—as he often is, to be fair—when discussing Martínez.
“Just was great,” Alcaraz said of his latest haircut. “I know people are not used to see myself getting a haircut during the matches, so I think that's why the people was a little bit surprised? But I think that's something normal.”
This jaunt to Paris is the second time Martínez has traveled to cut Alcaraz’s hair on the road; the first was last September when he went to Valencia while Alcaraz was playing Davis Cup.
Like many hairstylists do with celebrity clients, Martínez posts photos of Alcaraz on social media after fresh cuts. As Alcaraz, a four-time major champion, grew more and more prominent worldwide, Martínez’s notoriety grew as well.
“When photos of me and Carlos started appearing in newspapers—in Spain and other countries—I started getting messages from all over,” he said. “Brazil, Italy, Spain. Messages from fans of Carlos. That’s when I realized people recognized me. I’d walk around Murcia and hear, ‘Hey, he’s the one who cuts Carlos’s hair!’ People recognize me now.”
The local fame has been good for business: “a lot” of other customers have followed Alcaraz into the barbershop, Martínez said.
“People ask for it: ‘Give me Carlos’s cut,’” he said. “They request his style. A lot of people and kids in El Palmar ask for the cut.”
How would Martínez describe the hairstyle he gives Alcaraz?
“A youthful cut,” he replied. “Trendy. Stylish. A fade. Very shaved down, like how young guys wear it now.”
Martínez then acknowledged the criticism the look gets.
“It’s often criticized, this hairstyle,” Martínez continued. “In tennis, players usually wear their hair longer, more classic. Carlos’s cut is bold, very youthful. Some people don’t like it; others, yes. He likes it. I like it, too. So it’s all good.”
On a tour where many men’s hairlines dwindle and retreat, Alcaraz has unrelenting hair that Martínez called “thick and tough.” He added that it grows quickly—as nearly any observer can see across even the length of just a two-week tournament. Looking at his father and brothers, it’s clearly genetic: as author Giri Nathan writes in his forthcoming book Changeover, the men of the Alcaraz family have “hairlines so robust that they may well be proceeding rather than receding.”
Thanks to his firm, solid hair, Alcaraz is one of the few top tennis players who rarely wears anything on his head while playing; his hair stays reliably secure even without a hat or headband.
“When he’s somewhere hot, we shave it down; when he's around here, he keeps it a bit longer, bangs to the side,” Martínez said. “It’s just a normal cut—it doesn’t bother him.”
But despite its functionality, many of Alcaraz’s fans are not just opinionated or unimpressed when it comes to Martínez’s handiwork, they’re appalled and vengeful. Martinez’s haircuts reliably enrage them to remarkable extents, as happened anew this week when Martínez surfaced in Paris.
In a Reddit thread posted soon after he was spotted in Paris on Tuesday, several fans had full-blown meltdowns about Martínez’s arrival. One, u/DarkPrincess_99, called his continued association with Alcaraz a “monstrosity.”
“I am sorry for this angry rant it is really late where I come from and I got very upset after seeing this post,” she wrote.
While most comments are not made directly to him, Martínez said he gets “tons” of direct feedback as well on his own social media. “I could show you my Instagram—so many messages,” he said.
But Martínez said he lets the feedback, positive and negative, wash over him.
“Some are good, some are bad,” he said. “Like I said before, most players go for classic, longer styles. Carlos’s cut is bold and young. Some people like it, others don’t. But Carlos and I laugh at the bad comments. It’s funny. He likes it, and so do I.”
Martínez was in attendance as a freshly-shorn Alcaraz beat Fabian Marozsan 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the third round. When Alcaraz lost the second set in an otherwise straightforward win, Martínez naturally became a magnet for a chunk of the blame.
“I am not superstitious but every time he gets a Victor Barber special he comes out to play like he's never played tennis before,” @notlimah44 wrote on Twitter.
When Tennis Twitter king José Morgado shared images of Alcaraz’s new haircut Wednesday, hundreds upon hundreds of people left comments or quoted the images to share their reactions.
Martínez acknowledged it’s strange how much reaction he and his work generate.
“Yeah, I get a lot of comments,” he said. “But I only focus on the good ones. That’s it.”
With all the attention he generates—and Alcaraz’s rave reviews—could Martínez’s clientele expand in the locker room someday? I asked him if there’s any other tennis players whose hair he’d like to cut.
“Oooh, Sinner,” he replied excitedly. “Sinner and Djokovic. Sinner, his hair is a bit longer [than Alcaraz’s], but Djokovic’s is more similar.”
When I asked if Alcaraz pays him the same as his other clients—reportedly his standard rate was 13 euros—Martínez laughed.
“I don’t charge him,” he said. “If he pays me, he pays what he wants.”
But beyond whatever he pays, Martínez said Alcaraz brings immense value with his friendly presence among other clients and employees.
“People at the barbershop talk about it, too: when he’s there, he talks to everyone—about soccer, music, anything,” Martínez said of Alcaraz. “He’s not acting like a celebrity, just another person. He takes pictures with people in El Palmar. He’s very kind and always smiling.
“It’s hard for him to walk around because people spot him right away: ‘Photo, photo!’” Martínez added. “But he still walks through town normally, especially when coming to the barbershop.”
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