To promote aromatic hydrogenation of distillates, a new composite support containing presynthesized crystalline AlPO4 structure was developed. This composite support causes easier reducibility of metal oxides and impedes nickel aluminate formation effectively compared with pure alumina counterparts. Moreover, the composite support exhibits higher surface area, larger pore volume, and better surface characteristic than the phosphoric acid-modified alumina to improve metal-support interactions and facilitate the polymeric tungsten species formation. The evaluation results show that the composite supported catalyst exhibits the highest conversion of tetralin, in comparison to the corresponding catalysts with pure alumina or phosphoric acid-modified alumina as supports.