Carlos Alcaraz's coach took huge pay cut and rejected top players in career risk
Carlos Alcaraz started working with Juan Carlos Ferrero when he was just 16.
Carlos Alcaraz lifted his third Grand Slam trophy on Sunday. He is now the youngest player to win Majors across all three surfaces after winning the French Open at the age of 21.
The Spaniard has become one of the most successful young players the sport has seen in years. And he has been guided by former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero throughout, with the retired tennis star joining his team when he was a teenager, before he entered the pro circuit.
And Alcaraz’s agent has now revealed that Ferrero took a huge pay cut and turned down offers from top players to join the team after seeing promise in Alcaraz as a junior.
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Ferrero had already enjoyed a stint coaching Alexander Zverev by the time he joined the Alcaraz camp. The 2003 French Open winner teamed up with Zverev in mid-2017 after he had already won his first Masters title but they split less than a year later.
He then started working with Alcaraz when the current world No. 2 was just 16. But it was a very different reality to his job with top 10 star Zverev. It meant that Ferrero chose to accept lower pay because he saw so much potential in the Murcian teenager.
Alcaraz’s long-time agent Albert Molina had been hoping to facilitate a link-up between Alcaraz and Ferrero. When it finally happened, they needed to find a way to pay such a high-profile coach.
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Some of the money came from management agency IMG, who Molina works for, and Ferrero decided to accept a lower rate than one he would’ve received from Zverev or another top player. Molina told Cope: “I talk to my bosses, I tell them that in Spain there is a kid with a good projection and from the United States they give me the okay [for the money].
“With a part of the money helps us and Ferrero on the other hand, he makes the effort and invests in the future. When he accepts and starts working with Carlos, he is aware that he is not going to enter or be paid like Ferrero, as a coach of a top player.”
But Ferrero knew that the decision would pay off, and it has. Alcaraz became the youngest world No. 1 in ATP history when he ascended to the top of the rankings as a 19-year-old for the first time in September 2022. He already has 14 titles including the US Open, Wimbledon and now Roland Garros.
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Molina added: “Investing in the future is nice in the moment but then people can fail you. But Juan Carlos and I have a good relationship and we knew. that what we agreed would later be fulfilled. And then the family has been very noble and always complied with what was said.”
It was a massive risk for Ferrero, who also fielded offers from high-profile players before taking a leap of faith to nurture Alcaraz’s game and talent. “I had my doubts because he had come from training Zverev, who was thirdin the ranking, and had proposals from top players,” Molina said of his decision to approach Ferrero about Alcaraz.
“And I went with a proposal from a 15-year-old player, so that he could go to play in the juniors in South America and tournaments in Europe in a category that was not top level, to which Juan was used to. In the end he had already seen him, he came to Murcia, he saw him compete, he was convinced of the project, he liked it and we started working.”
