Juan Carlos Ferrero is superbly guiding Carlos Alcaraz to the top of tennis where he himself once stood and in an interview with the Evening Standard, he talked about his protege.
Juan Carlos Ferrero has worked with tennis players in the past and while it has been okay for the most part something about Carlos Alcaraz intrigued him so much that he could not turn it down. He has his reservations and speaking about it, Ferrero said:
“I saw different things that I liked a lot, even in just how he competes. Of course, it was risky and I remember his manager recommending I think a lot about it. It was going to be different to Sascha [Zverev] or Pablo Carreño-Busta. There were many things to work on but I felt motivated by the project. So, I took the leap.”
Ferrero did not expect Alcaraz to have such a dramatic rise this year despite knowing and setting out a goal of being top 10 of the ATP Rankings by the end of the year:
“I expected he was going to end top 10 at the end of the year and I thought maybe he could do better but, for sure, I’m still surprised with the great results coming so soon.
The rise reminded him of Nadal:
“Yes, he reminds me of Rafa in that situation. They’re both reaching great things in similarly young ages. In Spain, we are noticing a great excitement about him. Rafa is still the main favourrite for Roland Garros. Comparing a kid with three titles to Nadal with 13 French Opens is out of sense.”
Asked about the upcoming Roland Garros Ferrero spoke honestly:
“We have the objective of going there and try to win it. This will be really hard but we think we’re ready for it. I really think he has possibilities although he is not the main favourite. There’s good work to do and space for improvement yet. But he is a 360 complete player. He has so many good things, so many resources. That’s his best facet. This makes it hard for his rivals to compete against him.”
And on his goals this season:
“He has proven he can compete against the best and we have settled objectives: become a Grand Slam champion and become No1. But we won’t start thinking if he can win more than one when he hasn’t eve had the chance to get one yet.”
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