{"id":1560,"date":"2026-01-06T17:00:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T17:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=1560"},"modified":"2026-01-06T17:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T17:00:36","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-adjusts-his-pre-australian-open-plans-as-key-off-season-training-focus-is-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=1560","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz adjusts his pre-Australian Open plans as key off-season training focus is revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Carlos Alcaraz has adjusted his early 2026 season schedule, while a technical change the world No 1 has been working on has been revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The six-time Grand Slam champion will not play any tournaments before officially starting his campaign at the Australian Open, where main draw play will begin on January 18.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/carlos-alcaraz\">Alcaraz<\/a> will, though, face world No 2 Jannik Sinner \u2014 his biggest rival \u2014 in an exhibition match in Incheon, South Korea on January 10.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report by Eurosport Spain, Alcaraz was originally set to travel to South Korea on Monday, but he has delayed his trip until Wednesday January 7.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old will spend Three Kings Day, a major Spanish holiday on January 6, at home with his family in El Palmar.<\/p>\n<p>Alcaraz has trained for four weeks at the Real Sociedad Club de Campo in Murcia, his long-time home tennis club, and the report revealed he has been making tweaks to his service motion.<\/p>\n<p>During his practice sessions, Alcaraz has been seen working on improving his service ball toss with his coach Samuel Lopez.<\/p>\n<h2>Tennis News<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/carlos-alcaraz-split-juan-carlos-ferrero-emotional-turbulence-greg-rusedski\"><strong>Will Carlos Alcaraz regret splitting with Juan Carlos Ferrero? Former world No 4 answers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/carlos-alcaraz-quetsions-asterisk-jannik-sinner-mark-woodforde\"><strong>Grand Slam-winning legend suggests Carlos Alcaraz has an asterisk against his name<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Alcaraz had the best season of his career to date in 2025 as he won eight titles, including two majors, reached 11 finals and finished as the year-end No 1.<\/p>\n<p>However, constantly finding ways to improve is a quality shared by tennis\u2019 greatest players, and Alcaraz\u2019s focus on his serve during off-season training suggests he feels this key area of his game can reach another level.<\/p>\n<h2>How did Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s serve perform in 2025?<\/h2>\n<p>For the 2025 season, Alcaraz ranked 10th on the ATP Tour\u2019s Serve Rating Leaderboard, which takes into account: first serve percentage, first serve points won, second serve points won, percentage of service games won, average number of aces per match, and average number of double faults per match.<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard was third for second serve points won (56.8%) last year, but he finished in a modest position of 26th for first serve points won (74.1%), highlighting that first serve effectiveness is an area in which he has significant room for growth. Alcaraz ranked sixth for percentage of service games won (87.6%).<\/p>\n<p>Alcaraz\u2019s rival, Sinner, topped the rankings for first serve points won (79.5%), second serve points won (59.1%) and percentage of service games won (92%).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Want more from Tennis365? Add us as <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=tennis365.com\" target=\"_blank\">a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-features\/carlos-alcaraz-jannik-sinner-rivalry-something-missing-anna-chakvetadze\">\u2018Alcaraz &amp; Sinner\u2019s rivalry is very similar to Federer, Nadal, Djokovic \u2013 but something is missing\u2019<\/a><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/carlos-alcaraz-plans-before-australian-open-change-training-insight\">Carlos Alcaraz adjusts his pre-Australian Open plans as key off-season training focus is revealed<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/\">Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carlos Alcaraz has adjusted his early 2026 season schedule, while a technical change the world No 1 has been working on has been revealed. The six-time Grand Slam champion will not play any tournaments before officially starting his campaign at the Australian Open, where main draw play will begin on January 18. Alcaraz will, though, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}