Tennis Prose




May/19

21

Is Agassi A Mediocre Coach?

Andre Agassi produced mediocre results with Novak Djokovic, shortly before Djokovic re-hired his old coaching team which resulted in Djokovic returning to his best level and winning Wimbledon and US Open and regaining the ATP world no. 1 ranking. Djokovic’s success begged the question…why couldn’t Agassi inspire Djokovic to return to glory?

Last year Agassi began working with Grigor Dimitrov and once again, another elite ATP player has failed to prosper under the guidance and advice of Agassi. Dimitrov is a lousy 9-8 on the year. And he’s lost his last four matches in a row, to the likes of Federico Delbonis today in Geneva 6-2 in the third set, Jan Lennard Struff in Rome 6-3 in the third, Taylor Fritz in Madrid 76 76, and Nicolas Jarry in Barcelona 7-6 in the third.

Dimitrov is now ranked 47 in the world. Just two years ago he was no. 3.

It’s alarming that a tennis guru zen master like Agassi is not effective to give Dimitrov any kind of spark and inspiration with his advice, insight, and vast knowledge.

After his partnerships with Djokovic and Dimitrov, there’s only one conclusion to make: Andre Agassi may have been a sensation, all time great player but as a coach so far he’s been mediocre at best.

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15 comments

  • catherine · May 22, 2019 at 2:35 am

    Agassi didn’t work full-time with either Djokovic or Dimitrov and that approach hasn’t produced great results. So if Andre isn’t prepared to make a major committment, he has many other activities in his life, then maybe coaching at the top level isn’t for him.

  • Scoop Malinowski · May 22, 2019 at 7:54 am

    Catherine, still Agassi is part of the team and Dimitrov is going the wrong way, he’s losing too much, he’s a journeyman player this year. Agassi has to absorb some or much of the blame for this.

  • catherine · May 22, 2019 at 8:44 am

    Dimitrov showed promise once but underneath he was always a journeyman, though a talented one. A while ago Grigor was asked about Agassi and he replied ‘ He’s in my corner’, which sounds pretty vague to me.

  • Scoop Malinowski · May 22, 2019 at 10:05 am

    Catherine, Dimitrov was more than a journeyman. Peter Lundgren, when he was his coach, actually said Dimitrov was better than Federer at the same age, I think it was 19.

  • catherine · May 22, 2019 at 11:31 am

    Yes, but he never developed. Somewhere he slipped off the rails. I blame Sharapova 🙂

  • Hartt · May 22, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    Lol about Sharapova.

    Seriously, she such a fierce competitor she was probably a good influence on Grigor. Or do you mean her breaking up with him? Then yes, I will blame Maria! 🙂

  • catherine · May 22, 2019 at 1:08 pm

    Grigor’s good looks ruined his career. His social life must have seriously cut into the time he had to spare for tennis. Maria is a few years older than Grigor and very ambitious – that was never going to work.

    He’s now losing his hair slightly so perhaps tennis may become more central to his life as modelling opportunities fade. Anyway – I hope he can sort out his coaching situation and have a few good years – but I doubt Agassi can help.

  • dan markowitz · May 22, 2019 at 1:46 pm

    There’s been a lot of good-looking players who’ve risen to the top of the game, Borg and Vilas stand out most prominently so I don’t think being good-looking has been Grigor’s downfall.

    And having Agassi in your corner of course can help. If it can’t help having one of the greatest, cerebral, come-back prince players in the game in your corner, then coaching itself has to be called into question.

  • Scoop Malinowski · May 22, 2019 at 6:55 pm

    My guess is Dimitrov is too nice. This is a guy who actually thanks the media after his press conferences. To be the best you have to be a bit of a ruthless cutthroat career killer. I think Dimitrov lacks that quality, to be a ruthless killer. Todd Martin, Petkovic I think are two other players that may be too nice. Wozniacki is another.

  • Karyn · May 23, 2019 at 11:00 pm

    Grigor is the best looking tennis player in history. So many women wanted him. I don’t know why he played tennis, he should have been a male model. Does anyone remember a more perfect Bulgarian specimen?

    Maybe Grigor hired Agassi to enhance his playboy lifestyle rather than for tennis reasons. Does anyone know if he is still dating that older woman? You have to be jealous of her.

  • Hartt · May 24, 2019 at 8:16 am

    Who we think is good-looking is very subjective. I know a lot of people think Grigor is handsome, but to me he has sort of a baby face – rather round and not enough planes and angles. The player I thought was extremely attractive was Tommy Haas, when he wasn’t wearing that stupid backwards baseball cap.

  • Scoop Malinowski · May 24, 2019 at 8:30 am

    Karyn, thanks for telling us how appealing Dimitrov is to females 🙂 Dimitrov probably chose tennis over modeling because playing tennis is a lot more challenging and fun than sitting in front of a photographer as some sort of stooge to make this face or that expression. Tennis is more free and far more rewarding activity IMO. Nothing against models but I think that career choice is overrated. Dimitrov has had a great career, no. 3 in the world is better than Ferrer ever got to I believe.

  • catherine · May 24, 2019 at 9:01 am

    Actually I was joking a bit about Grigor’s handsomeness – I don’t really think that has affected his career. He’s basically a good player who probably made the most of his talent, had one good year and got some notoriety out of being with Sharapova (and a couple of other names in tennis).

    He is nice – very polite to women and stuff like that. I saw him offering a helping hand to Simona once in Madrid at some PR crush where a lot of guys would’ve just pushed past her.

  • Scoop Malinowski · May 24, 2019 at 9:17 am

    There is not a player nicer than Dimitrov, always been nice to me, first met him at 19 at US Open qualies, seen him in press conferences, alwqys extremely nice and cordial to the media when some players are only there because they have to be and act accordingly. Let me repeat I never found a nicer pro player than Dimitrov but some are even or close like Wilander, Dolgopolov, Sandgren, Youzhny, Guga.

  • catherine · May 27, 2019 at 1:34 am

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