Carlos Alcaraz’s goal for the 2025 season is very clear. The 21-year-old from Murcia wants to win as many titles as possible and return to the top of the ATP ranking, overtaking his great rival Jannik Sinner. It will not be an easy feat even for a champion like the Spaniard, who is almost 5000 points behind the Italian ace and who often has ups and downs during the year.
The 4-time Grand Slam champion knows that he has to work above all on regularity and consistency during the season, which has been his main weakness up to this point in his career. Carlitos occupies the third position in the ATP ranking behind Sinner and Sascha Zverev, despite winning two Grand Slam titles (Roland Garros and Wimbledon) and a Masters 1000 (Indian Wells) in 2024.
Alcaraz© Instagram Carlos Alcaraz
The former world No.1 tends to have dips within the season and even within the match itself, details that his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero insisted on a lot during the preparation in his academy.
Alcaraz has been practicing with great dedication in recent weeks, before enjoying a few days of relaxation with his family for Christmas. The Spanish ace will not play any official tournaments before the 2025 Australian Open, but he will leave for Australia very early in order to get used to the weather conditions and the surface.
Carlitos changes his schedule
Carlos reached the quarter-finals as his best result at Melbourne Park and will be looking to make it to the bottom in the next edition. The Spaniard will opt for a different schedule in the first part of 2025, more similar to Sinner’s.
The current world number 3 will play the Rotterdam ATP 500 and Doha ATP 500 in February, while his presence in Dubai before the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells and Miami is not excluded. The 4-time Grand Slam champion is very ambitious and wants to achieve the goal of overtaking Jannik as soon as possible.
The former world number 1 is working on some details during the pre-season, as explained by his coach Ferrero in a long interview with ‘Punto de Break’.
“We are trying to change a little thing about the serve, so that it has a little more rhythm, that it is more fluid and relaxed,” he revealed.
“Then we will smooth out small details, like the issue with the forehand, we want it to be more of a killer at certain moments. We have to enhance its DNA and work on its weaknesses” – he added.
Carlos Alcaraz, Six Kings Slam 2024© Stream screenshot
The serve is a shot that Carlitos must certainly improve. His incisiveness is still too low and the percentages are not so high, as shown by the statistics released by the ATP at the end of the season. Alcaraz has to make the difference with this coup and has been working on it for several months, waiting for it to produce good results. Serving issues are one of the reasons for his poor results in indoor conditions, where Sinner is much more effective than his Spanish rival.
This year the 21-year-old from Murcia achieved slightly better results in the latter part of the season, winning the Beijing ATP 500, but he did not shine at either the Rolex Paris Masters or the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin (also due to an illness).
A satisfactory preparation
In the same interview, Ferrero also commented on Carlitos’ 2024 season: “It has been a spectacular year.
Winning a Grand Slam is very, very challenging, so winning two makes for a magnificent season, although there are always areas to improve, like off-court matters or certain training aspects.
Carlos is very aware of what he needs to improve each year; I see him getting more mature every day in being a professional and approaching things with more thought.
I like how he is tackling the pre-season; I see him very focused on what he wants to improve or what didn’t go so well this year.
Those ups and downs in matches, for example, he knows he needs to improve them because it’s more mental than tennis-related.”
Carlos Alcaraz, Laver Cup 2024© Stream screenshot
The young Spaniard was the only player capable of defeating Sinner three times in 2024. The 21-year-old from Murcia prevailed in the semifinals of the Indian Wells Masters 1000, the semifinals of the French Open and the final of the Beijing ATP 500, which was one of the most spectacular matches of the entire season.
Their rivalry is great for men’s tennis, and everyone’s hope is that these two young champions will face each other in a Grand Slam final in 2025. Both will play a couple of exhibition matches in Melbourne in the week leading up to the Happy Slam.
Tennis World USA