With Carlos Alcaraz in the limelight after his French Open 2024 win, a lot of credit is being given to his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero. Ferrero, who himself won the French Open men’s singles title as a player back in 2003, spoke to L’Equipe about Alcaraz’s success. The veteran Spaniard believes that his 21-year-old star pupil is ‘far from his peak’, perhaps in an attempt to keep him grounded and focused for future success.
Juan Carlos Ferrero is of the opinion that Carlos Alcaraz still needs to work on his ‘mental stability’. He may have meant it in terms of maintaining the consistency required to win high-pressure matches regularly. It is an interesting comment as there seems to be a difference between mental strength and mental stability.
Carlos Alcaraz started his French Open final match against Alexander Zverev with a thumping win in the first set. He was 6-3 up, and it looked like it was going to be a processional win for him. But Zverev, being the gritty player he is, bounced back strongly in the second set with a 6-2 win. The German won the 3rd set too, with a 7-5 scoreline despite Alcaraz being up 5-2 at one point.
In a great display of mental strength and conserving energy, Carlos Alcaraz put up a strong fight to win the big moments in the next two sets and convincingly close out the match, 6-1, 6-2. Zverev was himself stunned, not only by his younger opponent’s physical prowess but also by his ability to bounce back in that way.
Even during last year’s Wimbledon final, Carlos Alcaraz managed to hold his nerve in high-pressure points and situations of the match to defeat a man who does not accept defeat till the last, Novak Djokovic.
But Juan Carlos Ferrero has brought out an interesting point, perhaps looking at the fact that Carlos Alcaraz has gotten away in some big matches because of his talent and incredible skillset. Even though it does take a lot of spontaneous thinking from a singles tennis player in Grand Slams to win tough matches, Ferrero emphasised more about ‘mental stability’ as something he will work on with Alcaraz.
“We are trying to find the mental stability that he lacks, so that he can maintain a very high level in a whole match. It’ll come with experience,” Ferrero was quoted as saying in the interview.
Fortunately, Ferrero’s bond with Alcaraz has been strong and the same since he began training Alcaraz back in 2017. The former World No.1 has perfectly mastered the art of keeping it friendly with his young ward as well as knowing when to be honest and strict with him about his game. So these comments are justified in a way.
Co-incidentally though, Juan Carlos Ferrero is not the only high-profile name who has such a view on Carlos Alcaraz. Serena Williams’ ex-coach and Holger Rune’s current one, Patrick Mouratoglou spoke about it as well in his recent video on social media.
How Can Carlos Alcaraz Become a Legend? Patrick Mouratoglou Explains at Length
While Mouratoglou acknowledged Alcaraz’s super versatility and completeness as a 21-year-old tennis player, the champion coach believes the Spaniard indeed has something to learn, echoing Ferrero’s views.
Patrick Mouratoglou was referring to the same point of Carlos Alcaraz’s highs being extremely high, especially in a match and his lows being very low. He meant that while Alcaraz is able to capitalise when he gains momentum in his favor, he gets carried away easily when he starts losing points and games in a row.
The French coach also believes that Alcaraz will work on it with time and experience and believes that if a player has to become a legend, then their lows cannot be too glaring and that they should be quick to respond to those.
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Fortunately, Carlos Alcaraz seems too humble a person and player at the moment to take such advice from two big achievers in the tennis world with utmost grace. Since the beginning, Alcaraz has had to adapt to different surfaces and train harder than other players due to mainly clay being available in Spain for developing his game. That also takes a lot of mental fortitude and openness to other training regimes.
But there is a strong likelihood of two things happening from now. Firstly, the words ‘mental stability’ could get more popular in the tennis world thanks to Carlos Alcaraz. Secondly, Alcaraz would face such a challenge again for sure if he has to defend his Wimbledon title this year as Jannik Sinner, his biggest rival and the World No.1, is a stronger player this year and others such as Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medvedev and Grigor Dimitrov, are potential contenders for the title.
