Alcaraz starts preseason with his sights set on Melbourne & the Career Grand Slam
Carlos Alcaraz is back on court. On Monday, the Spaniard officially began his preseason together with his team at Real Sociedad Club de Campo in Murcia, which is close to his home in Palmar, as he prepares for the upcoming 2025 season.
Alcaraz ended his year playing in the Davis Cup Final 8 in Malaga, where Rafael Nadal played the last event of his legendary career. After Spain bowed out in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands, Alcaraz took a holiday with his friends in the Dominican Republic, using it as an opportunity to disconnect on the beach, relax on a boat, and play golf.
The break marked the end of a dazzling 2024 in which he won the Roland Garros and Wimbledon titles, the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Paris, the ATP Masters 1000 title in Indian Wells and an ATP 500 crown in Beijing, where he saw off Jannik Sinner in a thrilling final.
Alcaraz, who will end the year as No. 3 in the PIF ATP Rankings, behind Sinner and Alexander Zverev, will kick off his 2025 campaign at the Australian Open, a tournament he is yet to win. If Alcaraz were to claim victory in Melbourne, he would become the youngest man in the history of the game to complete the Career Grand Slam.
In a bid to pull it off, the 21-year-old has laid out a demanding training schedule of several weeks before he boards the plane that will take him Down Under in early January. Once there, he will be attempting to usurp defending champion Sinner.
[ATP APP]In the coming days, Alcaraz will be practising at the Ferrero Tennis Academy in Villena with Flavio Cobolli, the World No. 32. The Spaniard’s sessions there will be overseen by Juan Carlos Ferrero and Samuel Lopez, who has officially joined the Murcia native’s team.
On Friday Alcaraz, who ended the 2024 season with 54 wins and 13 defeats, will be at the official opening of ‘Los pies en la tierra’ (Feet on the ground), an Alcaraz Foundation exhibition that seeks to highlight the importance of equal opportunities for children with a journey through the tennis player’s life.
Editor’s note: This story was translated from ATPTour.com/es.
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