Carlos Alcaraz will step up his preparation for his clay-court swing in the coming days and he will have his long-term coach back on the team during his trip to South America and the United States.
Two-time Grand Slam winner Alcaraz was forced to do without the services of Juan Carlos Ferrero during his Australian Open campaign as the former world No 1 was unable to make the journey Down Under as he was still on crutches after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left knee.
Samuel Lopez took charge of the coaching duties, but Alcaraz made a premature exit from the season-opening Grand Slam as he was stunned in the quarter-final by Alexander Zverev.
According to Spanish publication Marca, Ferrero is back on his feet and will take over the coaching duties from Lopez when the world 2 returns to training on Wednesday.
He will also accompany Alcaraz to Latin America as well as North America.
Alcaraz has signed up for the two clay-court tournaments, the Argentina Open and the Rio Open, and it will be his first events on the red dirt since July last year when he represented Spain in the Hopman Cup in Nice.
After his South American sojourn he will travel to Las Vegas for an exhibition event with tennis great Rafael Nadal before turning his attention to the ATP Masters 1000 Sunshine Double.
The 20-year-old has a lot of points to defend in the coming weeks, which is bad news for his hopes of catching world No 1 Novak Djokovic in the ATP Rankings.
As the defending champion in Buenos Aires, Alcaraz has 250 points to defend while he finished runner-up to Cameron Norrie at last year’s Rio Open and will drop 300 points before the event gets underway.
With Djokovic not having any points to defend before the Dubai Tennis Championships at the end of February, the gap between the top two could increase to more than 1,000 points. Djokovic currently has 9,855 points while Alcaraz sits on 9,255 points.
It will be a similar story for the upcoming Sunshine Double where Alcaraz has 1,000 points to defend at the Indian Wells Open after winning the title last year while he will drop 360 points at the Miami Open following his run to the semi-final.
Djokovic, meanwhile, didn’t play in either California or Florida in 2023 due to United States entry restrictions for unvaccinated foreign travellers and he will only drop 180 points in the next two months for his run to the Dubai semi-finals last year.