Turin is bracing for one of the images of the tennis season: somewhere inside the Inalpi Arena, host of the ATP Finals, Carlos Alcaraz and Juan Carlos Ferrero will cross paths eleven months after putting an end to a professional relationship that seemed destined to define an era.
For seven years, they shared the court, practices, defeats, and the greatest milestones of Alcaraz’s career. Since December, however, they have barely been in touch, and their paths have moved in opposite directions.
“We are definitely going to see each other in Turin. If the meeting finally happens, we’ll try to normalize it one hundred percent. The time has come, and I’m sure deep down he also wants everything to normalize,” Ferrero revealed this week in an interview with Marca.
The former world number one in 2003 landed in Turin on Thursday afternoon, a city Alcaraz had reached a few days earlier to begin preparations for the Year-End Championships. The 2005 ATP Finals were precisely the last tournament where Alcaraz and Ferrero coincided as player and coach. Because right after the holidays, at the start of the preseason, the separation came.
The breakup in December 2025 after seven years together was one of the biggest blockbusters in tennis. Alcaraz and Ferrero had built an extraordinary career together, from the Spaniard’s early steps on tour to his consolidation as world number one and Grand Slam champion. That is why it came as such a surprise that they parted ways when they still seemed to have so much left to conquer. Explanations never fully cleared up all the unknowns, although Ferrero hinted in several interviews that differences with the player’s entourage had played a significant role.
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
The coach never hid his pain. He admitted that it was hard for him to watch Alcaraz’s matches and that he needed to distance himself from a chapter that had consumed a large part of his life. In the following months, his professional future remained up in the air. He stepped away from the circuit, began coaching golfer Ángel Ayora, and found time for other projects, such as writing a book, while his name kept coming up whenever the past and future of Alcaraz were discussed.
The player, meanwhile, also experienced an unusual year with Samuel López as his head coach. He started the season by winning the Australian Open—the only Grand Slam that eluded him—and later suffered a wrist injury that forced him to miss Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and four Masters 1000s. In recent weeks, however, he has returned to displaying the tennis that carried him to the top, arriving in Turin as the heavy favorite for the title. Life without Ferrero has gone on, and it has done so with trophies.
The latest major move came from Ferrero’s side. After months of granting interviews and fueling speculation about his return to the tour, Alcaraz’s former coach announced that on November 9th he would unveil his next project. The news, however, leaked ahead of time while Alcaraz was playing the Vienna final: Ferrero will return to coaching, this time taking charge of American Ben Shelton.
And just a week after Ferrero’s new destination was made public, Alcaraz defeated Shelton in the Paris final. Now, in Turin, the two will share the same venue once again, albeit from very different positions: one as a player who has continued to rack up success, and the other as a coach embarking on a new adventure on tour. Although Ferrero will only stay for a few days and will only accompany Shelton for his opening match due to pre-existing commitments for the following week.
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
It remains to be seen what the encounter will be like—whether there will be a long conversation, a hug, or simply a nod between two people who know each other better than almost anyone else on a tennis court. It is unknown if there will be cameras to capture the moment, or if it will take place out of the public eye. Nor is it clear whether time has softened the differences that triggered their split.
For eleven months, the story of Alcaraz and Ferrero has been told through interviews, statements, and memories of a partnership that marked an era. In Turin, for the first time since the breakup, the two protagonists will be face to face. And even though their paths no longer run together, looking back will be inevitable.
