When two people break up, everyone else wonders why. All the more so if the separation was not apparent to outsiders, if it apparently happened suddenly. The usual whispers and whispers follow: Had the relationship secretly, quietly and quietly grown cold, had the two of them grown tired of each other, or, oh my, had one of the two possibly fallen for a third person or was even caught astray?
The separation of world number one Carlos Alcaraz from his tennis coach and personal teacher Juan Carlos Ferrero, announced out of nowhere on Wednesday, invites us to look for discrepancies. In their respective closing words, both of them praise the other beyond praise. Ferrero, however, ends his contribution with the telling sentence: “I would have liked to continue.”
If you look closely, you can identify some breaking points in the seven years since Ferrero took on his compatriot as a 15-year-old tennis gem, gave him a polish and led him to six Grand Slam titles in three years and to the top of the world.
There are the different temperaments. Ferrero is an introvert who feels most at home in his secluded tennis academy and is anything but eager to take a coaching job just to be in the spotlight. Alcaraz is extroverted, a showman who only really gets going on the big tennis stages and constantly encourages the audience to enthusiastically celebrate his strokes of genius.
“Absolutely not”
There is the work ethic. Ferrero is someone who places great value on discipline. It starts with punctuality and ends with the fact that students in his tennis academy are forbidden from using smartphones outside of set times. The forty-five-year-old also publicly warned his compatriot, half his age, that he had to decide whether he wanted to live a sweet life or become the best tennis player in history. Alcaraz would like to keep everything straight and celebrate some successes in the middle of the season in Ibiza, because he wouldn’t be able to play well without having fun.
And then there’s the hair thing, which perhaps gave the most outward indication that Alcaraz and Ferrero were drifting apart. Some time ago, Alcaraz asked his trainer whether he should dye his hair blonde like Ferrero himself as a young professional. “Absolutely not,” said the coach. Then, after his US Open title last September, Alcaraz not only had razor-short hair, but had actually dyed it platinum blonde. A clear sign that he has a mind of his own. And if in doubt, intends to enforce it.
The online tennis magazine “Clay” quotes a person close to him explaining why Alcaraz fired his successful coach nine days before Christmas and three weeks before the start of the new season: “There were significant differences of opinion between Ferrero and Alcaraz’s father about how the career should be managed.” According to another source, the employment relationship broke down when the two were negotiating a new contract. It wouldn’t be surprising if Ferrero had demanded greater dedication to the profession from the twenty-two-year-old. Alcaraz wrote in his farewell that he knew “that we gave ourselves everything.”
The boss is the player
But what comes next? And above all: who? Samuel Lopez, who works at Ferrero’s academy and has occasionally represented him on the tour as a coach, will initially stay at Alcaraz’s side. Whether there will be a new “super coach” depends on what approach the Spanish tennis star is looking for.
“Even if a new coach basically says the same thing as the old one, he puts it in different words – and that resonates with the player,” says Dominik Meffert, sports scientist at the German Sports University in Cologne and one of two coaches of the top German pair Kevin Krawietz/Tim Pütz. “In tennis you have a tricky situation,” explains Meffert to the FAZ: “On the one hand, you have to lead, on the other hand, the guy is your employer. You have to be unpleasant as a coach, but you can’t overdo it.”
Unlike in football and other team sports, there is little evidence in tennis that coaching changes have a short-term effect. After a few months at the earliest, things occasionally look better: After Novak Djokovic brought the former serve gunner Goran Ivanišević into his coaching team in order to improve his service, he became the Grand Slam record champion within just a few years. The Polish Iga Świątek won Wimbledon for the first time this year after parting ways with her long-time coach six months earlier and hiring Wim Fissette as a good listener and meticulous teacher. Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka brought in a biomechanist to help them serve after their previous coaches couldn’t help them – and won major titles.
Ferrero taught Alcaraz a lot, both in life and in the game. Last season they worked hard on the serve – with resounding success. How good Carlos Alcaraz will be without his antipode is the most exciting question of the beginning of the tennis year.
