On December 17, 2025, social media was abuzz with the heightened chatter surrounding Carlos Alcaraz’s split with long-time coach Juan Carlos Ferrero. The world’s best men’s tennis player had taken to both Instagram and X to announce the parting of ways with a man who had shaped his career since he was 15, helping him earn six Major titles and scale the pinnacle of the ATP rankings.
Such was the frenzy that in faraway Bengaluru, on the sidelines of the World Tennis League exhibition tournament, an enthusiastic scribe asked the maverick Aussie Nick Kyrgios about it.
The 2022 Wimbledon finalist, who had not even heard the news until then, said, “I hope they are okay… I hope they are okay”, keeping his head down and moving it vigorously from side to side. The tennis world and its most famous practitioners were both shaken and stirred.
Surprising divorces
In the subsequent days, the happenings were discussed threadbare, sides taken, loyalties questioned and judgments passed. There have been surprising divorces before, like those between Novak Djokovic and Goran Ivanisevic, Naomi Osaka and Wim Fissette, Garbine Muguruza and Conchita Martinez, and Andy Murray and Ivan Lendl. But none elicited the feverish reactions the Alcaraz-Ferrero rupture did.
It may be a sign of the times wherein social-media engagement boosts reach, increases visibility and attempts to make maximum impact. It may also be because Alcaraz is arguably the most popular player on the planet and a bona fide tennis legend in the making, ensuring that every move of his is dissected and every action amplified.
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But more than anything it may be the coming of age of the player-coach relationship in one of the most individualistic sports. Tennis has long prided itself for being among the torchbearers of the one-on-one contest. Coaches were all along seen as mere side actors rather than as protagonists. But not anymore.
Tipping point: Raven Klaasen, a coach with the Doubles Dream of India project, believes in-match instruction has profoundly altered how players value coaches.
| Photo Credit:
K. Murali Kumar
Coaches are now spoken of in the same breath as the player, and with on-court, real-time instruction-giving fully legal at all levels since the beginning of 2025 — the Australian Open even had a coaching pod where Murray sat within earshot of Djokovic when they were associates — they are no longer just part of the backroom but very much front and centre.
They even do standalone media briefings. At last year’s Wimbledon, Jannik Sinner’s coaches Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi — who have helped him win four Slams — came to the press conference before the champion did and spoke for as long as the Italian eventually did.
And the ATP, since 2016, and the WTA, since 2018, have instituted Coach of the Year awards, and Ferrero and Cahill have won the prize in three of the past four years.
South African Raven Klaasen, a former top-10 doubles player and Major finalist, who now travels with a bunch of Indians as part of the Doubles Dream of India project, feels that coaching during matches has played a big role in the rapidly shifting coach-player dynamic.
“I think it’s created more value for the coaches, because the biggest thing that you want is to affect a match in real-time,” he told The Hindu. “If you’re not allowed to communicate, and afterwards you have a good idea, it’s of no value to anybody. It probably incentivises players to invest more into coaches because you get the result while you are actively busy.”
Fundamental conflict
For the purists, this mutation in the mentor-mentee equation militates against the sport’s foundational ethos of mano-a-mano combat. Battling loneliness on court, problem-solving on your own and coming up with ideas without external help are considered the basic tenets. Tennis resembling a team discipline is not for them.
But according to Klaasen, the game still retained a sufficient amount of individualism. “It’s more restricted than you think,” the 43-year-old replied when asked if on-court coaching was all-pervasive. “Players are on your side of the court only half the time. You’re not allowed to delay play at all and you’re not allowed to speak when the opponent takes a toilet break.
“So you are talking about little ‘nibbits’ of time. Like, you have 10 seconds and if you’ve got a great idea, the chance that you could get that over to your player and have a positive effect is quite small. It’s not like cricket or rugby where you are standing and having a conversation in a time-out.”
To be fair, the hiring of star advisors is not new to the game, and they have been accommodated for a multitude of reasons. For some, the guide is a sounding board, for others a father figure and for many just a person to help with bespoke skill-sets.
For example, the kind of instructors Djokovic has had — Boris Becker, Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi and Murray — shows that apart from helping with strategy and tactics, he needed someone of matching stature.
In contrast, Aryna Sabalenka, alongside her long-term tutors Jason Stacy and Anton Dubrov, sought the help of Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics expert, to sort out her serve which had completely broken down in 2022.
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“I was [never] looking for big names because sometimes big names are just big names,” Sabalenka said during the WTA Finals in 2024. “I was looking for someone smart and someone who can understand that even if I go crazy on court, it’s nothing personal.”
But it is the siblings-in-arms nature of present-day combinations that feels different. One of the most striking visuals in recent times of a coach fronting up for a player came in August 2024 ahead of the US Open when Cahill defended Sinner publicly after news about the then World No.1’s twin doping violations — and exoneration — had emerged.
Coach and advocate: Darren Cahill defended Jannik Sinner publicly after news about the then World No.1’s twin doping violations — and exoneration — emerged.
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Getty Images
The Aussie, in an interview with ESPN, an agency he had worked for as an analyst in the past, softened the blow, helped lessen the media attention and ensured Sinner could focus on his tennis. It is an open question as to whether a less-pedigreed coach or a player without top-draw resources would have received the same platform.
Klaasen did not speak in this specific context, but opined that the mania around Alcaraz and Ferrero, and the continuing interest over the bond between Sinner and Cahill, only highlighted the evolving nature of the alliance between sportspersons and their confidants.
Behind the scenes
“The result that you see on the match court is the end result of a long process of discussions, possibly fights and disagreements,” the former Australian Open and Wimbledon finalist said. “A lot goes on behind the scenes to get to that end product that you see. Oftentimes there are factors we don’t know about that come into play.
“But again, as the sport becomes more and more professional, more and more difficult, it’s harder and harder for players to do it by themselves. So support structure is necessary and we’ll only see that becoming more important as things go forward,” he added.
