Musetti Welcomes Perlas to Sharpen 2026 Edge

Lorenzo Musetti has added veteran coach Jose Perlas to his team, the Italian confirmed in an Instagram post Monday. At 23, he wrapped 2025 ranked No. 8 in the PIF ATP Rankings, his 45-22 record capping a year of relentless climbs from clay-court mastery to hard-court battles. The move arrives amid personal joys and professional pressures, positioning him to channel that momentum into 2026 without the isolation of top-tier demands.

“Let’s start preparing for 2026,” Musetti wrote, captioning a photo of him with longtime coach Simone Tartarini, Perlas and fitness trainer Damiano Fiorucci. “Welcome Jose.”

Perlas brings depth to Musetti’s ascent

Perlas boasts an extensive résumé, having coached a list of names including Carlos Moya, Albert Costa, Guillermo Coria, Nicolas Almagro, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Janko Tipsarevic and Fabio Fognini, among others. Perlas most recently worked with Serbian Dusan Lajovic. The Spaniard also captained his home country to the Davis Cup title in 2000 and 2004.

For Musetti, whose one-handed backhand carves inside-out angles with precision, Perlas offers a counter to the mental fatigue of 67 matches. His experience refining 1–2 patterns for clay grinders like Guillermo Coria could help Musetti disrupt flat-hitting returns on hard courts, where quicker tempos exposed tighter margins in deciding sets.

Clay triumphs fuel hard-court evolution

Musetti hit a career-high No. 6 in June following a standout clay-court swing. He reached his first ATP Masters 1000 final in Monte-Carlo and then advanced to the semi-finals in Madrid, Rome and at Roland Garros, his first major semi-final appearance. Among his other results in 2025, Musetti reached the US Open quarter-finals for the first time and was a finalist in Chengdu and Athens.

The 23-year-old competed at the Nitto ATP Finals for the first time, gaining a spot in Turin following the withdrawal of Novak Djokovic. Those clay peaks, built on heavy topspin crosscourts that pulled defenders wide under Paris sun, transitioned to faster surfaces demanding down-the-line slices to neutralize power. Perlas’s Spanish roots might sharpen those shifts, blending endurance from five-setters with proactive net approaches to sustain his 70% clay win rate across the tour.

In November, Musetti shared that he and his partner Veronica welcomed the birth of their second child, Leandro. This family milestone grounds his drive, easing the solitude of global swings while Perlas instills tactical layers like varied serve placements to keep opponents off-balance in tiebreaks.

2026 horizons blend tactics and resolve

Musetti’s addition of Perlas signals more than roster tweaks—it’s a bid for psychological ballast after a season of highs like Roland Garros semis and lows in humid US Open rallies. Expect refined underspin approaches to counter 130-mph serves, drawing from Perlas’s work with Juan Carlos Ferrero on hybrid defenses. As off-season courts echo with focused drills, Musetti emerges fortified, his elegant strokes poised to command baselines from Melbourne to New York.