A burden and a big one opportunitywhich arrived suddenly, unexpectedly, less than a month after the start of theAustralian Open. Samuel Lopez will start 2026, in fact, as new head coach Of Carlos Alcaraztaking the place vacated by Juan Carlos Ferreroof which he was the principal collaborator in the current team number 1 in the world from the 2024 offseason. All just six days after being named Coach of the Year fromAtp (together with Alcaraz’s now ex-coach). This is while waiting to understand the Spaniard’s future intentions regarding the name that should occupy the casella vacated by Ferrero.
Lopez this season was a character silentremained somewhat in the shadows in the balance of Alcarazbut she was also a figure very important. It’s not just the aspects technicians e tactical in his vision of tennis. There is also a concept that gives great importance to the side mental: “In tennis you always evolve, but above all you have to grow on a mental level,” he underlined in an interview last February. And perhaps it is also in these words that lies the foundation behind the season just concluded, which saw Alcaraz triumph at Roland Garros and US Openregain the number 1 in the world and raise 8 titles.
Born in Alicanteborn in 1970, Samuel Lopez’s career in tennis is built on the corner, as a coach. In fact, as a player he never achieved it levels of excellenceboth singles and doubles. On the official ATP website his name is accompanied by only one piece of data: the position number 1,459 as the highest point reached in the doubles ranking. In short, great tennis has always been around very far away. However, he was among the founders, together with Antonio Martínez Cascalesof the current one Ferrero Tennis Academy a Vilenawhere he followed many young tennis players.
Before Alcaraz, his parable was marked by collaboration alongside Pablo Carreno Busta9 years long. In this period of time Lopez, thanks to his guidance and advice, pushed the Gijon tennis player towards world top 10 (first touched on in September 2017), as well as seven ATP titles and above all to win the bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, taking it away from Novak Djokovic. A relationship terminated at the end of 2024.
This new relationship between Alcaraz and Lopez takes shape from one break without warnings of the day before, which has several similarities with the one that led to the separation between Jannik Sinner e Riccardo Piatti. Even in that case the news came like a bolt from the blue, followed by a fair dose of perplexity general. Like the Italian, the Spaniard also seems intent on taking a step forward beyond the results, to see if he can explore other nuances of your game. In short, Alcaraz changed because it was the time has come for a changeopening a new chapter in his career. A chapter that sees in the first line, at the moment, Samuel López Jareño.
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