Carlos Alcaraz’s opponents will face ‘heavier shots’ as he makes technical tweak after racket change

Shahida Jacobs
Pictured: Carlos Alcaraz at practice
Carlos Alcaraz serves during practice

“To always be at the top you have to keep adapting to what’s demanded of you and changing little things to be better or just as competitive.”

Those are the words of Carlos Alcaraz and he has certainly changed a lot of “little things” for the 2025 season as he looks to start the year with a bang at the Australian Open.

By most people’s standards, Alcaraz was brilliant in 2024 as he won the French Open and also successfully defended his Wimbledon crown. Yet he finished third in the ATP Rankings as Jannik Sinner was the best player on the ATP Tour as he won the Australian Open and US Open and six other titles while Alexander Zverev was second.

Alcaraz also had a lacklustre end to the year as he won only one title during the second half of the campaign, the China Open, while he bombed out of the US Open in the second round and the round-robin phase of the ATP Finals.

But the 20-year-old and his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero quickly set in motion plans to improve as they confirmed at the end of the year that a new coach would join the team.

Samuel Lopez was the man added to the coaching set-up and then at the start of 2025 it was revealed that Alcaraz also started using a heavier racket.

And the latest tweak is a change to the service motion as his team hope it will make him “more relaxed”.

“We knew that the serve was something I had to improve, we had to do something. It had to be more accurate and I wasn’t managing to do that,” the four-time Grand Slam winner explained.

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The Spaniard added: “The new movement is a little more relaxed, quite a lot more relaxed, with a looser wrist to try and improve my timing and there’s no pause when the racket gets to the top, it’s all more fluid.

“That also affects a few things during matches, for example, I’m not so tense, which can take its toll physically.

“I haven’t had much time to practise the new serve. I still have to think about how to do it, but it’s feeling better every day.”

With his Babolat racket now 5 grams heavier, coupled with the new service motion, he expects his shots to be heavier.

“In the end, we had to change certain things, to try them out,” he said. “Yes, more than change, we had to try things. I was playing with quite a lightweight for the pro tour. We said we’d try those 5 grams and it felt pretty good.

“The most important thing for me was that I could move it just as well as the racket I was playing with, I didn’t notice anything in my arms. Honestly, it was fantastic. It helps me because my shots are heavier, and for certain shots like the serve and the return that’s always useful.”