Like Tiger Woods, the best isn’t good enough for Carlos Alcaraz

Carlos Alcaraz has been getting the odd comparison with Tiger Woods for a while.

Mats Wilander made the connection in 2023, the year after the Spaniard had, aged 19, won his first major – the US Open – and become the youngest world No.1 in ATP history. The gist was that Alcaraz embodied characteristics from each of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, but was destined to be bigger than the “Big Three” because he made being that good look fun, too.

“He’s going to be like the Tiger Woods effect,” Wilander said. “Because people want to be a part of tennis because of Carlos Alcaraz.”

It happened again in 2025, when he pulled off a historic comeback from two sets down to defeat Jannik Sinner in the final at Roland Garros and the PGA Tour made a point of congratulating him. “5 majors by age 22. Not even Tiger Woods did that,” the Tour’s official account wrote on X.

There were, understandably, some (many) people in the golf community questioning the equivalence of an achievement in such different sports.

In 2026, another parallel has emerged, albeit one safer from apples v oranges criticism: Alcaraz to tennis, like Woods to golf, is very comfortable with change; to take something that is working peerlessly and modify it, adapt it, or dispose of it completely and start again.

The latter occurred in December when Alcaraz parted ways with long-time coach Juan Carlos Ferrero. It was one of those announcements that tipped the earth slightly off its axis, mainly because this partnership seemed so fine. Fine in the sense that Ferrero had coached Alcaraz since he was 15, nurtured his raw talent, helped him turn professional, refine his game and then oversaw all six of his grand slam singles titles.

Damn fine, really. So damn fine that he can, at 22, become the youngest man to complete the career grand slam with a first Australian Open crown at Melbourne Park. On the weekend Alcaraz acknowledged everything he’d learnt from his former coach, saying it’s “probably thanks to him I’m the player that I am right now”. Still, it was “a chapter of life that had to end”.

Less catastrophic system updates have been installed in the settings, and became apparent during Alcaraz’s practice match with Alex de Minaur, and then again in his round-one win over another Australian, Adam Walton. The new service motion, for example, that is strikingly “Novak-esque” (Wally Masur), with that signature dip of the wrist and drop of the racket head; more spin and pace on the ball, more precise placement.

Carlos Alcaraz serves against Australia’s Adam Walton in Sunday’s round-one win at Melbourne Park.Credit: Getty Images

“Everyone has to make changes, small details,” Alcaraz said as he laughed off the similarities. “My serve is something I want to always improve, and I work on it constantly. Honestly, we did not plan to make changes during the pre-season, but that does not mean I have not.

“I have changed my movement a bit; I feel very comfortable and calmer, with a more fluid rhythm, which helps my serve improve. You will probably see more changes in my serve in a few months or at the end of the year. I make constant changes to every shot; the important thing is the details. I have not set out to make my serve the same as Novak’s but, ultimately, even I can see the similarities.”

It is particularly interesting because he had just finished refining his serve to be a standout facet of his game. Previously it was inconsistent. When he won his first US Open in 2022 he conceded 24 service games throughout the tournament. During the 2025 tournament, he conceded a total of three service games. Only Pete Sampras, at Wimbledon in 1997, has conceded fewer service games on his way to a grand slam title since 1991.

And you have to ask: if Alcaraz now possessed a serve so devastatingly effective it was part of what made Sinner – his only genuine rival in the post-Big Three era – appear out of his depth in that spectacularly one-sided 2025 US Open final, why not just serve that exact serve every time for the rest of your days?

For the same reason, presumably, that Woods abandoned the world’s best golf swing and rebuilt it. Having already rebuilt the world’s best swing before that, and the one before that. He showed us that he is the best, and that the best is still not good enough.

Woods changed what was perfect – and changed coaches, too – in pursuit of something superior to flawless; to evolve his style and strategy, and manage injuries and maintain dominance in a constantly advancing professional game. He has won 15 majors over 22 years.

Tiger Woods, en route to winning the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines, has spent his whole career evolving.Credit: Getty Images

Perhaps for the same reason also that Simone Biles repeatedly redefined the technical limits of gymnastics. Not content to make do with already-available routines, she unveiled new, wickedly difficult skills, of which five are eponymous.

Alcaraz, while in the infancy of his career, has also set himself a higher ceiling. After that triumph at Flushing Meadows, he said: “I feel I can do everything on court, to be honest – slices, drop shots, topspin, flat”. And yet, he spent the off-season remodelling.

His tweaks may be for himself, or they may be geared towards his sport-headlining rivalry with Sinner; evolving to one up the Italian world No.2. Sinner, certainly, has been making alterations of his own.

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“We worked a lot [in the off-season] on trying to make the transition to the net,” Sinner has said. “We changed a couple of things on serve. But [they’re] all small details. When you are at the top level, the small details make the difference.”

So small might the details be that they are not perceptibly advantageous until the pointy end of the tournament, potentially even another Alcaraz-Sinner epic to compare to the rest. Whether Alcaraz finally gets there at an Australian Open could offer a clue about the success or otherwise of his off-season renovations.

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