Carlos Alcaraz adds another coach for 2025

Yesterday at 10:00 AM

Carlos Alcaraz has finished a season with which he can be very satisfied. The young Spanish champion has shown that he can compete at the highest level on all surfaces and has achieved a sensational feat for a player of just 21 years old, winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year (the youngest ever to do so).

The 21-year-old from Murcia also won the Indian Wells Masters 1000 for the second year in a row, triumphed at the Beijing ATP 500 and took the silver medal at the Paris Olympics, although the defeat to Novak Djokovic in the final left its mark on his mind.

The 4-time Grand Slam champion dreamed of winning the gold medal for his country, but he did not handle the pressure well in the final and had to succumb to the experience of a legend like Nole in one of the best matches of all 2024.

The current world number 3 has had many ups and downs again this season, struggling to find the right consistency especially in the Masters 1000 tournaments. This is one of the reasons that allowed German ace Alexander Zverev to snatch the second position in the ATP ranking from him in the last weeks of 2024. Because of this overtake, Carlitos may have to face his huge rival Jannik Sinner in the semifinals at the next Australian Open.

The former world No. 1 will play two exhibition matches in the United States this week, facing Ben Shelton at Madison Square Garden in New York and fellow American Frances Tiafoe in Charlotte. After that, Alcaraz will start training for next season and leave for Australia after Christmas. As in previous years, the young Spaniard will not play any official tournament before the Happy Slam (which will start on January 12 and end on January 26).

According to MARCA, there will be a novelty in Carlos' team next year. Juan Carlos Ferrero will no longer be his only coach, but Samuel Lopez will also be there. The latter has just ended his collaboration with Pablo Carreno Busta after 9 years and is ready for this new experience.

Due to Ferrero's absences, Lopez had already followed Carlitos to the 2022 Miami Open, the last two editions of the Queen's tournament and the 2023 Australian Open. Samuel will make his 'debut' in Alcaraz's box in Rotterdam in February.

Meanwhile, it has already been announced that the world No. 3 will play the Queen's ATP 500 and the Laver Cup in 2025.

The 4-time Grand Slam champion knows he has to improve in some aspects to return to the top of the ATP ranking and undermine Sinner, who has maintained impressive consistency this season. Alcaraz ended 2024 with a gap of almost 5000 points from the Italian ace, despite winning two Major titles and a Masters 1000.

Because of his game, the 21-year-old from Murcia struggles to maintain the same intensity throughout the year and tends to suffer some very surprising losses when he is not in top form. In addition, the Spaniard needs to improve his game in indoor conditions as evidenced by the results obtained in the last two seasons.

Despite having had ups and downs in 2024, top coach Paul Annacone believes that Alcaraz deserved to end the year in second position ahead of Sascha Zverev.

“In my opinion, Sasha Zverev has had an amazing year” – the former Roger Federer’s coach said.

“The points don’t lie. He played an unbelievable amount of tennis, but if you win two majors and you’re not ranked No 2 in the world, that to me says that there’s a glitch in the system.

I think what is amazing is Carlos won two majors this year and didn’t play great in either one of those majors.

I was court side for his Roland Garros semi-final and I saw all of his Wimbledon matches, he didn’t play poorly, but for him, how skilled he is, he didn’t play great.

He is managing that level well enough to win majors, but periodically away from the majors we have seen a couple of blips on the radar” – he concluded.

The Spaniard will have to take another step next year and limit the number of drops, otherwise he risks falling further in the ATP ranking.

Unlike in recent years, Alcaraz will not play the tournaments on the red clay in South America after the AO but will play the prestigious Rotterdam ATP 500 for the first time in his career. In addition to the Spaniard, Sinner, Medvedev, de Minaur, Rublev and Dimitrov will also play in the Dutch tournament.