{"id":99100,"date":"2026-03-06T15:19:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=99100"},"modified":"2026-03-06T15:19:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:19:23","slug":"juan-carlos-ferrero-speaks-carlos-alcaraz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/03\/06\/juan-carlos-ferrero-speaks-carlos-alcaraz\/","title":{"rendered":"Juan Carlos Ferrero Speaks on Carlos Alcaraz: “When I See Him Play, I Feel Sadness.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juan Carlos Ferrero sat down on Thursday for an hour on El Cafelito, the Spanish video-podcast hosted by Josep Pedrerol, and proceeded to do something almost no one in professional tennis ever does. He told the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not the whole truth. Ferrero is too decent for that, and too careful. He repeatedly declined to go into specific details, insisting throughout that “these are internal matters.” But the outline of what he revealed, and the emotional texture of how he revealed it, told a story that the polished PR of both camps had spent three months trying to prevent from being told. It’s the story of a man who poured seven years of his life into a partnership and was discarded by forces above his head, and is still, in a very visible way, devastated about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

What happened with Juan Carlos Ferrero and Carlos Alcaraz?<\/h2>\n

What Juan Carlos Ferrero Actually Said<\/b><\/h4>\n

The headline quote has already spread across tennis social media. Asked whether he would ever coach Alcaraz again, Ferrero answered without pause: “They say that second chances are never good, but there are some films where they are. Deep down in my heart, I couldn’t say no to Alcaraz.” It is a beautiful line. It is also a quietly damning one, because implicit in it is the acknowledgement that the decision to end things was not his. You do not describe your inability to refuse someone who left you if you were the one who left.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was the consistent theme of everything Ferrero said for an hour. “When I see Carlos play, the desire for everything to go perfectly for him mixes with the sadness of not being by his side.” On the contractual breakdown: “I asked for certain conditions, and on their part, others were asked for, and there has been no understanding.” On the broader collapse: “We no longer saw eye to eye on the future of our work. Some private situations arose internally.” The family, he acknowledged carefully, “may have influenced it, yes.” He did not name the father. He did not need to. Everybody already knew.<\/span><\/p>\n

What he did choose to address directly were the two peripheral controversies that had taken on lives of their own. The Instagram unfollow, the most discussed non-event in tennis this winter, was explained with a disarming candour that made it more poignant, not less: “I don’t follow him because I need a little bit of time, to separate. At the same time, if I check Instagram, it pops up everywhere. In the end, I don’t achieve anything.” The image of a former world number one, one of Spain’s better players in modern times, a six-time Grand Slam-winning coach, futilely unfollowing an account so he does not have to keep seeing what he is missing. It stings, doesn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came the most unexpectedly sharp moment of the interview, delivered diplomatically. Alcaraz did not mention Ferrero in his Australian Open victory speech. His seventh Grand Slam and the one that completed the career slam achievement for him. The one Ferrero helped build him for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked directly whether that stung, Ferrero replied: “It didn’t bother me that he didn’t mention me. Obviously, if he had, I’d have liked it. But I assume he and his team have decided not to talk about the matter anymore, and that’s that.” Read the grammar of that sentence carefully. “He and his team.” Not just Carlos. The team that decided. And then Ferrero, ever the loyal Spaniard, moved on.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also clarified the Ibiza controversy, comments from the Netflix documentary in which he had implied that Alcaraz’s periodic mid-season holidays were a risk to his ultimate greatness. His walk-back was measured but revealing: “He always gave everything in training.” The Ibiza comment, he suggested, was about a coach’s fear rather than a player’s failing. “Those are the fears you have as a coach.” It is the kind of thing you say when you are trying to protect a relationship you hope might still be repaired.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what about that hope? Ferrero confirmed he was the person who encouraged Samuel Lopez, the coach who replaced him, drawn from his own academy, to take the job. “It stings a bit,” he admitted. “But I’m getting better at it.” He kept in contact: “I wrote to him after Australia and also afterwards, in Doha. And also to the whole team. I have no problem with that. In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing him so I can give him a hug, normalise everything that has happened and maybe play golf.”<\/span><\/p>\n

All of that is gracious. It is also, if you are reading with a careful eye, the behaviour of a man who was dismissed and is trying very hard not to feel dismissed.<\/span><\/p>\n

What It Means for Alcaraz<\/b><\/h4>\n

The uncomfortable truth is that this complicates, slightly but meaningfully, the image tennis has been building for him. The sport’s current golden boy has been positioned with near-universal success as the antidote to everything that made the Djokovic era complicated. Charismatic, warm, beloved everywhere he goes. That image is not false. But the Ferrero situation introduces a shadow that does not disappear just because Alcaraz is 12-0 and winning Slams.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carlos Santos, Alcaraz’s first childhood coach, already said bluntly that “Carlos’s father is the one who’s really in charge.” Toni Nadal said, with typical directness, that “nothing is done without Carlos’ approval, of course.” Alcaraz himself, in Melbourne, described it as “a mutual decision” and said he “needed a change.” Language that is technically true of most coaching splits and explains precisely nothing. At Indian Wells this week, he described his team as having “mostly the same members. We’re just missing one.” The framing is bloodless. The missing one built him from a fifteen-year-old boy into the greatest young player in a generation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cruellest detail in all of this is the most mundane. The player Ferrero shaped is currently having the best run of his career without him. Ferrero has insisted he would coach Alcaraz again if asked, but given how the 22-year-old has performed without him in 2026, that call seems unnecessary. Alcaraz does not need Ferrero anymore. Whether that is because of everything Ferrero taught him, or despite the split, or simply the natural arc of a great player coming into full maturity, that question will be debated for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Chapter Closed With More Dignity Than It Deserved<\/b><\/h4>\n

What Ferrero’s interview did, ultimately, was close the public chapter of this story with more grace than it was owed. A man who helped create something extraordinary, who wanted to keep going, who was told he could not, possibly not by the player he loved coaching but by the situation that arose around him, sat down for an hour and explained, gently and without malice, that breakups are painful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Emotionally, I’m better. Three months have passed, and we have to move forward. But breakups are painful, and this has been a significant breakup.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody in tennis would put it that plainly. Ferrero did. That is probably why it hurts many.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main photo credit: Susan Mullane-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juan Carlos Ferrero sat down on Thursday for an hour on El Cafelito, the Spanish video-podcast hosted by Josep Pedrerol, and proceeded to do something almost no one in professional tennis ever does. He told the truth. Not the whole truth. Ferrero is too decent for that, and too careful. He repeatedly declined to go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5393,"featured_media":99124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1735],"tags":[5729,3601],"class_list":["post-99100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-all-time-best","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-juan-carlos-ferrero"],"modified_by":"Jim Smith","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99125,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99100\/revisions\/99125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}