Carlos Alcaraz’s coach assesses how he must improve as he responds to Andy Roddick criticism
Carlos Alcaraz’s coach Juan Carlos Ferrero has discussed how the Spaniard can improve his game and responded to Andy Roddick’s comments about his serve.
Alcaraz has had a mixed start to the 2024 season, having reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and the semi-finals of the Argentina Open, before he was forced to retire due to injury in his opening match at the Rio Open.
The two-time major champion produced an erratic display in a four-set loss to Alexander Zverev in the last eight of the 2024 Australian Open last month and was broken seven times during the match.
Speaking on his Served podcast after the Australian Open, Roddick analysed Alcaraz’s serve and identified it as an area of the 20-year-old’s game that had not developed.
“I think his serve leaves a lot to be desired. That is the one thing that I don’t think has really improved much at all in the last two years,” the 2003 US Open champion assessed.
“I remember watching him, kinda his breakout – we knew about him – but winning Miami a couple of years ago and he was serving 135, and now I feel like he’s serving 127.
“Alcaraz, if he’s not hitting that kick serve – that’s getting you up and away and out of the zone – it feels like people are able to firm up his first serve when he goes after it. You need to create a little motion on that serve, he needs to create a little bit of tail.
“Especially with how good he is on that first ball and how much he can bully you. Right now, even his slice serve feels like it kind of goes straight. It doesn’t have that like [Pete] Sampras swing on it where it’s tailing away from you and you’re kind of having to chase it.
“It’s like, if you read it right, you can kind of square it up and get that good pop sound to it. So I think the serve is the most obvious place to improve with Alcaraz.”
In an interview with Clay Tenis, Ferrero outlined the ways in which he feels Alcaraz needs to improve.
“A bit of everything, he’s very young, I think he needs to continue maturing as a young player to make good decisions in there. He needs to grow tactically, to know how to read the matches a little bit better, which is what experience gives you,” the Spaniard explained.
“To know the players well, well, to know what foot they are limping on or what their virtues are, to know how to enrich himself from the most direct rivals, from those who are up there, Jannik [Sinner], [Daniil] Medvedev, Novak [Djokovic], [Stefanos] Tsitsipas, [Alexander] Zverev.
“Enriching yourself from all of them to keep raising the level, learning to train every day with a clarity of ideas to improve. A little bit of everything. In the end, you can’t stop the progression of a 20-year-old player. No matter how high he is.”
The 2003 French Open champion then explained that he did not agree with Roddick’s claim about Alcaraz’s serve, but recognised it must develop further.
“The serve is something that Carlos is improving. When he was 15, 16 he didn’t serve well, we made a biomechanical change in his serve, it’s one of the things that is hardest to improve in a player who doesn’t serve naturally,” Ferrero said.
“A player like Roddick, who is a natural serve player, can improve very easily because it is his best virtue. It’s like if you tell Carlos to improve his forehand. It’s simple, because it’s his most natural stroke.
“The serve is something that has had to be polished little by little and he has been doing it. Yes, he has speed, he has direction, we are working on getting more consistency with the first serve, but you get there little by little. This does not stop, we have to keep improving.
“Sure, it’s easy to criticise him when it’s your best virtue and you see everything so simple. The opinion is respectable, although I don’t share it completely, because Carlos has improved his serve a lot.
“If you saw him three years ago, you would say, “f**k, how [bad] he serves.” It’s something that improves little by little, it’s not so easy to have a serve with a lot of speed and a lot of direction.”
Ferrero was also asked about his relationship with former world No 1 Roddick, who he lost to in the final of the 2003 US Open.
“Yes [we talk], when we see each other, no more than that,” he added.
