ATP Tour

Ferrero & Lopez win Coach of the Year in the 2025 ATP Awards

Juan Carlos Ferrero and Samuel Lopez have been named Coach of the Year in the 2025 ATP Awards. The Spaniards helped Carlos Alcaraz regain the No. 1 spot in the PIF ATP Rankings and earn ATP Year-End No. 1 presented by PIF honours.

Ferrero is the first coach to win the award twice, having been named to the same honour in 2022. Lopez joined Alcaraz’s coaching team before the 2025 season and there was never any doubt there would be good chemistry between him and Ferrero.

“I’m so happy with the award,” Ferrero told ATPTour.com. “I was in no doubt that Samuel would fit our working philosophy really well, because we’ve been working together for many years and he knows exactly what I want for Carlos [Alcaraz]. He’s done great work from the start.”

Lopez added: “Everything was easy, because the results came,” he said with a smile. “I’ve known Juan Carlos since he was ten years old and Carlos since he took his first steps at the [Ferrero Tennis] Academy. I was with Pablo [Carreno Busta] during that period, but we’d shared a lot of moments together. The working atmosphere is very relaxed because we’ve always known each other and we understood what Carlos needed.”

 

 

 

 

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Alcaraz finished the year with a season-leading eight titles, including trophies at Roland Garros and the US Open, as well as the ATP Masters 1000s in Monte Carlo, Rome and Cincinnati.

Since the Coach of the Year category was added to the ATP Awards in 2016, Ferrero has been nominated for the accolade four times and won it twice. The award is voted on by fellow coaches.

“Honestly, since I started this project, it’s never been a goal to win Coach of the Year,” said Ferrero. “But for the work to be recognised by other coaches who understand as we do how complicated it is... it means a lot to me to have won it twice now. This year it’s doubly fulfilling because I’m sharing it with Samuel.”

The Spanish duo helped Alcaraz claim a career-best and season-leading 71 matches wins, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index. Ferrero and Lopez were on the same page with their messages.

“Maybe I freshened things up, because Juan Carlos has been with him for seven years and I’m new,” said Lopez, who had previously coached Ferrero himself, as well as Pablo Carreno Busta and Nicolas Almagro before formally joining Alcaraz’s team. “I know the team and we’ve all contributed equally, but in different ways. Above all, we’ve really insisted that the work has to be fun.

Ferrero added: “The goal is for Carlos to work at 100 per cent and get everything out of the talent he has within him. We do that through hard work and discipline, but also with fun and joy while we’re doing it. In that regard, I’m maybe a bit stricter and more serious. And Samuel is the joker, he’s more open. But he also has the serious side you need when it comes to work.”

Even in a season during which Alcaraz finished atop the PIF ATP Rankings, there was a fair share of setbacks for the team. The ATP Masters 1000 hard-court swing in Indian Wells and Miami proved to be a turning point for Alcaraz, particularly when he bowed out to David Goffin in his opener in Florida.

“Carlos had just won in Rotterdam, when he did great. But in Indian Wells and Miami he lost a little confidence,” said Ferrero. “It was a tough time, not because of the defeat, but the way it happened. He was affected by the tournament and we had a chat when we got back. We talk to him a lot, but when you see that he’s short tempered or weak at some point of the season, we always talk a little more from a psychological point of view and as friends, more than as a coach.”

And then everything clicked, specifically at the ATP Masters 1000 in Monte Carlo.

“Winning in Monte Carlo, without playing that well, but having a 10-out-of-10 attitude really helped him have clarity about the rest of the season,” said Ferrero. “From there he reached a lot of finals, had incredible results in the Grand Slams... But Monte Carlo was a lightbulb moment. It gave him the confidence he needed and from there he was able to get some amazing results.”

Monte-Carlo was just Alcaraz’s first step in an unforgettable clay season. He earned two more titles on the surface, in Rome and at Roland Garros. He also reached the final in Barcelona, tallying a 22-1 clay-court record. But apart from the spectacular results, Lopez highlights an important step taken by Alcaraz in terms of his maturity.

“Carlos has matured and he has realised the importance of expressing his feelings,” said Lopez. “After Monte-Carlo, he was talking much more about how he was feeling and it really helped him to express himself more, in terms of any difficulties, fears, and everything that comes with being there and handling the pressure of the tour.”

Alcaraz’s ability to withstand the pressure was, in all probability, the key to him ending the season as the ATP Year-End No. 1 presented by PIF in Turin, a moment that Lopez will never forget.

“On a personal level, I won my first Grand Slam at Roland Garros by forming part of a team as a coach, and what a win!” said Lopez. “Then, at the end of the year we knew he had the chance to end it as No. 1 and although nobody on the team was obsessed with it at the time, doing it in Turin was also a very happy moment.”

Looking ahead to the 2026 season, Ferrero and Lopez’s enthusiasm for what is to come burns as brightly as ever.

“Our mission is to keep his ambition alive,” said Lopez. “You cannot rest on your laurels with what he’s achieved. From now on that motivation has to keep growing, wanting more big things that are within reach of so few and from there staying motivated and not settling for anything, always gunning for more with that joy he is known for, which rubs off on the rest of us.”

Editor's Note: This story has been translated from ATPTour.com/es.