Juan Carlos Ferrero and Carlos Alcaraz parted ways in December 2025 following seven years of success.
Under Ferrero’s guidance, Alcaraz won six Grand Slams, eight Masters 1000 titles and achieved the world number one ranking.
Ferrero has now teamed up with world number four Ben Shelton, who defeated Alcaraz en route to US Open final in September.
Prior to working with Shelton and Alcaraz, Ferrero teamed up with Alexander Zverev – who became the 30th world number one since 1973 on Monday.
Ferrero and Zverev’s partnership was certainly a tumultuous one, ending in controversial circumstances.
Juan Carlos Ferrero said Alexander Zverev ‘did not respect the guidelines’
Zverev and Ferrero worked together for seven months between July 2017 and January 2018.
During that period, Zverev won two significant ATP Tour events: the Washington Open and the Canadian Open.
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Despite the success, the pair eventually fell out in acrimonious circumstances.
After reaching the Mexican Open final in March 2018, Zverev explained the reason behind his decision to walk away from the Spaniard.
“My team is exactly the same except Juan Carlos left,” Zverev told reporters during a press conference in Mexico.
“We had a kind of a fight in Australia after the Australian Open, which is fine when it involves me and him. I have those kind of arguments [with other team members] and we are still working fine.
“That argument there involved my whole team and there was a moment where he was very disrespectful towards everybody in my team and that’s why I had to stop the relationship.”
Shortly after Zverev made those comments, Ferrero vocalised his side of the story.
“When he got more confident he didn’t respect the guidelines,” Ferrero said of Zverev in an interview with Spanish outlet AS.
“What I asked from the first day is to respect the team. Among other things I asked him to be a little more punctual, telling him that it was not right that he would arrive 20 or 30 minutes late to training day after day.
“The first months he was more disciplined and respectful, but when he got more confident he no longer respected the guidelines I marked out at the beginning.”
Ferrero is now set to join Ben Shelton’s coaching team almost nine years on from his split with Zverev.
Ferrero is set to join Bryan Shelton in the world number four’s coaching box. Bryan, a former professional player, is Ben’s father and coach.
Bryan has coached Ben since the young American turned professional in 2023.
How did Alexander Zverev perform after splitting from Juan Carlos Ferrero?
In 2018, Zverev continued to showcase why he was rated as one of the best young talents on the ATP Tour.
The German starlet reached his first Grand Slam quarter-final that year at Roland Garros and reached the third round of every other major tournament.
He also won four titles: Munich, Madrid, Washington and the ATP Finals.
These results helped Zverev achieve a career-high ranking of world number three on April 30. He went on to end the year as the world number four.
