#samuel lopez

Carlos:

keep in mind that as of 2022 pcb was the only active success story at the academia equelite jc ferrero [sic]. they'd had late-stage almagro, they'd briefly had zverev, they'd occasionally hosted ferrer. but pablo carreno busta is a legitimate homegrown success—he only got his breakthrough as a pro after joining equelite to work with samuel lopez. and he IS a success. atp top 10, masters title, olympic medal, grand slam singles semifinals, grand slam doubles final, davis cup, all achieved during his 9 years in villena with lopez. is he rafael nadal or carlos alcaraz, obviously not, but he's got a very respectable career that better than what the vast majority of professional tennis players will achieve. better than his contemporaries—he's arguably the most successful spanish tennis player since nadal & ferrer. (the other argument is rba, which is a fair shout.)

side note, pablo's full title on this blog is and always will be olympic bronze medalist pablo carreno busta because he did not win that match on superior talent he won it on sheer determination and i lived every second of it with him. playing channel slam holder novak djokovic, at the covid-postponed olympic games, with a medal on the line……………… like that was my GUY. and he did it!!!

anyway after 9 years it's never going to be just about the coaching and the training. it's personal. juanki always talks a big game about loyalty and family and looking at pablo it felt real! he was there from age 24 to 33. he idolized the boss (sometimes i wonder if that's part of why he picked villena in the first place)—his atp bio says his idols growing up were ferrero and ferrer, and that his "dream opponent" is ferrero. samuel lopez was part of his wedding, one of just two tennis guys to attend.

and this is what really kills me, the plan was for him to have an ownership stake in the academy. i don't know how much of a stake, and if the plan was to take an active role (like samu & toni c, who both own stakes) or stick to hands-off investment, but this was explicitly laid out as part of the plan for pablo's end-stage career: he stays part of the academy and is able to slowly transition from competing to other tennis interests. you know, just like juanki did.

key word being "transition" not "get euthanized." instead, finally starting to recover from the hardest stretch of his career, two weeks into preseason, juanki says: actually i need your coach asap thanks for the last 9 years enjoy the farm upstate! :)

and like. not a single person is blaming lopez for taking this offer, not pablo or me or anyone. how could you possibly say no to the chance to join carlos alcaraz's coaching team?? but there is a way to time the offer and manage the transition that does not result in your former best player cutting training ties with the organization with which he has nine years of history and a financial stake. and make no mistake, samuel lopez himself says the timing was bad and pablo was shocked. "but he told me he would have done the same thing." of course he did.

(pablo's hometown asturian sports media apparently went a bit farther and reported that it was Very unexpected. in the same interview above samu is like, i am so grateful that he reacted so well because i felt so bad i could barely finish my sentences. juan carlos when i get my hands on you.)

the one saving grace of this is that as i understand it (??) pablo had NOT fallen for the "live within a 5 minute radius of my academy" kool-aid and he & his wife had a house in barcelona, presumably making it a lot easier to find a new training base & coaching team on short notice. i don't know what happened to the socio plan and i hope that if he still wants to move forward with that and return to the academy in the future then he can. but honestly like. maybe he doesn't. who could blame him!

that's all what this meant for pcb, which uh sucks. but what's crazy is what it says about the academy! tennis is a small world and this is mindbogglingly short-sighted in a way that is characteristic of juan carlos ferrero's inability to see the big picture and/or comprehend that people will not automatically ascribe to him the best motives Just Because. 

what it looks like to juanki: i am unable to balance my personal/family needs and the coaching commitments for a world no 1-or-2-or-3. (possibly because i put off this decision later than i should have?) i want to onboard someone immediately and i want to be sure that i pick the right guy on the first try. samuel has a relationship with carlos, he's stepped in for me at other tournaments, and he's done this exact thing before, when he joined my own coaching team when i was a player. this is the best solution to a difficult problem and everyone will understand this point of view completely. 🙂

what it looks like to literally everyone else: watch out! if you work with the ferrero group, you can't trust that your interests will be protected or that your resources won't be compromised for the sake of the boss's special project. no matter how long you've been there or what you've been promised or how much you've achieved.

and like—maybe that's fine! maybe in the long term they don't want or need any mature players other than carlos. maybe they want to go forward with a strict focus on youth development, and if they produce more pros that's great and if carlos is the sole outlier then so be it.

but if i'm, say, darwin blanch('s family and advisors), i'm starting to think about whether there's a future for me in villena or not. and that sort of thing does have a trickle-down effect because you sell a €60k price tag on the back of your elite roster and their results. will my kid be rubbing shoulders with the pros. will my kid be training with the pros' coaches. will my kid be going pro, like the others s/he's around. some of this is pragmatic and some of this is about aura, and the marketability of carlos alcaraz speaks for itself. so in a sense one charismatic world no. 1 outweighs several lesser achievers. but there's a big difference between "active pros train here" and "you might catch a glimpse of carlos alcaraz, plus a couple great players trained here for a while as kids…. before leaving for IMG or barcelona or monaco, where they got their breakthrough."

it's natural and reasonable for an elite coach to put their world no 1-or-2-or-3 player's interests first and make ruthless decisions to get results. that's literally the job. when those decisions come into conflict with the interests of the organization that they are also in charge of, that's a problem. juanki can either be an elite coach devoted to one very special elite player or he can be the head of a tennis academy & professional training center. but he's gotta choose.

epilogue: in october 2025, pablo returned to the ferrero tennis academy to play the alicante ferrero challenger [sic]. he won the tournament. at the trophy presentation, he and samu hugged it out. juan carlos ferrero was nowhere to be seen.

notes:

1. it is worth noting that in another coaching transition that juanki would have been familiar with, the new coach explicitly said on the record, i would have joined the team sooner but i'd already started the preseason with the world no. 77 so the world no. 3 didn't think it was right to ask me at that time. needless to say this attitude has its own pitfalls lmao. but with .01% of thought you can come up with a solution somewhere in between these two extremes.

Juanki and Samu got inducted into the International Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame!

They also received the Bob Brett Mentoring Award and were given the title of an ESTESS International Master Professional by the Professional Tennis Coaches Association (PTCA) for their magnificent coaching careers.

some of my favourite quotes from the article detailing Juanki and Samu's Coach of the Year win: