“I wasn’t too strict” – Ferrero reopens the Alcaraz split in ‘El Mundo’
Juan Carlos Ferrero spent most of his coaching life letting Carlos Alcaraz’s results do the talking. Now, with a book to promote and the partnership a year behind him, the former world No. 1 is finally talking back – and giving his fullest public account yet of why the partnership ended. Presenting his autobiography Mentalidad … Continued
Juan Carlos Ferrero, 2026 | © Imago / PsNewz
Juan Carlos Ferrero spent most of his coaching life letting Carlos Alcaraz’s results do the talking. Now, with a book to promote and the partnership a year behind him, the former world No. 1 is finally talking back – and giving his fullest public account yet of why the partnership ended.
Presenting his autobiography Mentalidad ganadora (Ediciones Península), Ferrero used an interview with Spanish daily EL MUNDO to push against the dominant explanation for the 2025 break-up: that his demanding, almost monastic approach had worn Alcaraz down.
He doesn’t deny the philosophy. He denies the dose. “Saying no to a lot of things is essential,” he said, “but with Carlos I wasn’t too strict, not at all.” Discipline, in his telling, was never the problem.
He was just as firm in rejecting another popular frame – that coach and pupil had become something like father and son. “The relationship wasn’t paternal, not in the least,” he said. “You have to clearly separate family, the coach and friendships.” There was deep affection and trust, he allowed, and that bond was “one of the foundations” of their years together.
But he resisted the idea that emotion had blurred the professional lines, or that any single rupture had forced the decision. Asked whether he would change how it ended, Ferrero pointed past the final months: “I’d change things about his career, not just the last year.” No one dramatic event, he insisted, ended the most successful coaching story in recent Spanish tennis – six Grand Slam titles in all.
If the analysis was unsentimental, the aftermath was not. In the interview’s most human passage, Ferrero admitted he could not watch Alcaraz win this year’s Australian Open — the first major his former player lifted without him in the box.
“No, I didn’t watch the final,” he said. Earlier in the year he had revealed he couldn’t bring himself to see Alcaraz’s matches at all, so raw was the emotional blow of the separation. That, at least, has eased. “Now I’m watching a lot of his matches and I’ve got back into the rhythm of watching tennis calmly. I watch and I analyse everything,” he said. “The truth is I’m quite well again.”
The timing is pointed. Ferrero gave the interview on the cusp of his own return: he has confirmed he will coach a new player from 2027, a deal already signed, though he would not reveal the name – only that the player is already competing on tour, and that he would not travel to every tournament.
I don’t see myself doing that. With someone so young you have to invest a lot of time, do everything from the beginning.
He also ruled out taking on another raw teenager, as Alcaraz once was. “I don’t see myself doing that. With someone so young you have to invest a lot of time, do everything from the beginning, and I’m not at that stage of my life,” he said. “With Carlos it really motivated me. Now, after going through all of it, that’s not what I’m looking for.”
Ferrero did not confirm the media speculation linking him to Rafael Jódar.
