Marat Safin Interested to Coach a Player

Angie wouldn’t have a non-German speaking coach. Just for a start. And Safin sounds as if he’s thinking of coaching men – and not being able to travel all year – vague kind of committment. So no, I can’t see it happening with any current players.

Maybe Safin could assist a player who has a regular coach, so does not need someone to travel much. When Edberg and Fed worked together, I think the original agreement was for something like 20 weeks, although it did get extended.

What about Khachanov? Another big guy, and a Russian. Karen said his two idols growing up were Safin and Delpo, and that Safin would be his dream opponent.

And Karen is certainly an interesting guy with a kind heart!

On the subject of coaching, I just learned that Frank Dancevic is coaching Pospisil. Vasek called Frank his coach on an IG post during Shanghai, and also posted a photo of the two of them looking goofy with the Charlottesville Challenger trophy. Maybe having Frank working with him helps explain why Vasek has been doing well lately, including an upset, beating Khachanov. Vashy plays the Knoxville Challenger this week.

Dancevic is also coach for Canada’s Davis Cup team. He was a popular choice with the players. Frank helped Denis turn around his DC match in Toronto a little over a year ago, showing how effective he is as a coach.

And Daniel Nestor is going with the team to the DC finals in Madrid. If all the Canadian players are healthy, it will be a great team!

There are several strong teams. I hated the changes, but have to admit that now the tourney is getting closer, I am looking forward to it.

Both Vasek and Shapo have shown a strong commitment to Davis Cup. In fact Vashy, along with Nestor, was Mr. Davis Cup, for Canada for many years. Several years ago he even played doubles when he was still recovering from mono. Vasek can annoy me at times, because I think he should have made better use of his talent. But he has been a DC stalwart and deserves credit for that.

Andy has said that he needs to be on the tour to try to keep the size of his family under control! 🙂

Someone had mentioned this on another site, and I had a look at her Instagram, but the entire post did not show, so it was interesting to see the whole thing.

Along with what TT says about how Murray is misrepresenting himself regarding her career, what he did to Puig was disgraceful. Whatever the details, to leave her right before the USO said a lot about the guy.

Scoop – if Murray carries on this way he’s going to leave a lot of unhappy people behind him and I don’t see how that’s going to improve female tennis players 🙂

Cf Bajin/Kiki – do coaches treat male players like this ? I suspect they’d get a punch on the nose.

Nice to see CSN on a trip with NGOs to Uganda and doing her bit on a continent which gets pretty much left off the map in tennis promotional tours.

A change too from the usual off-season IGs of babes on the beach etc but I expect they’ll be along soon.

Scoop – A lot of people will say it’s just the money but the problems in parts of Africa are huge – ongoing violence and civil conflict, terrible heat, corruption in varying degrees – just probably seen as insurmountable. Carla went to Uganda which is (at present) one of the more accessible countries but it shares borders with the DRC and South Sudan which are considered dangerous to all but essential travel. So it’s difficult – also Ebola virus area at present.

The sad thing of course is that visits by players like Carla would be warmly welcomed if they could be arranged – I think Carla went to Uganda as part of a visit organised by NGOs in Spain. Federer has a fair amount invested in various foundations in SA through family connections. Long ago of course Yannick Noah was discovered in French Cameroon by Ashe and others on a State Dept visit.Serena and Venus also support some educational projects etc in Africa but I don’t know details.

It would be good to see the ITF, WTA/ATP maybe taking an interest – it’s worked for football.

Hartt – thanks for that info – very impressive contribution he’s making.

I think Fed is doing his share through his foundation. He is a tennis player, not a politician or diplomat, and has more than enough demands on his time.

Since this is the active thread I will post this here. Did anyone see Jannik Sinner’s match against Mikael Ymer in Milan? The kid just turned 18 in August and he was amazing! He is an aggressive player who does everything well. He hit some unbelievable shots in that match. He seems very calm on the court, and can play the big points very well.

I know a lot can happen with a young player but this youngster may well be a future superstar!

Hartt – I knew there was a reason Denis chopped off his hair a while ago 🙂

Jannik Sinner – what are his origins ? It’s not exactly an Italian name.

Short coaching stints seem to be the WTA fashion this year. I expect more changes. And how long will Fisette stay with Azarenka ? Don’t see Vika doing much more in her career although she may be eyeing the Olympics with Sabalenka for Belarus.

Kerber still officially coachless – could be taking her own gnomic utterance seriously – ‘clear your head and go your own way’. Or just telling us to wash our hair more often.

BTW – Ka’s tweet about Martinez sounded on the curt side of gracious. What is it with these women ? The WTA should run a seminar – ‘Chuck your coach under the bus – politely’.

Scoop, it starts at a very young age. The girls in particular go through coaches like shoes. If the 8 year old loses 2 green dot matches in a row, it is the fault of the coach and on Monday the parents find a new one. That continues right through juniors, always time for a new coach. We are able to see it up close in S. Florida since the parents have so many choices.

Glad Shapovalov life off court is going fab. Can’t imagine he’ll catch too many of her matches…maybe she’ll Mirka it and join Team Shapo.

Jannik Sinner comes from a part of Italy with a large German-speaking population. He speaks German and English along with Italian. His parents are Johann and Siglinde.

According to his ATP bio he is still in high school, which could be the case because he just turned 18 in August.

Unless Lendl. Then, Lendl’s choice.

Andrew, no worries about Mirjam Bjorklund ending her ‘career’ for Shapo. We saw her play in juniors and she won’t ever be a money making pro. Only the top 120 women make a profit after expenses from tennis and she has no chance of getting to that level. She is just one of those players whose wealthy parents bankroll the ‘career’. She is a 300-400 level player, which means it costs a lot of money to keep her on tour. It is what it is, if she wants a career where she makes money, it will not be playing pro tennis.

There are many players who stay on the tour without much success and I wonder how they afford if, because not all have wealthy parents.

One such player is Filip Peliwo. I sort of keep an eye on him because he is Canadian and was a successful junior. He is ranked No.285 and turns 26 at the end of January, so his is not an up-and-coming youngster. This season he has made just under $30,000 in prize money. He must truly love playing tennis, because I can’t think of any other reason to keep playing with these results.

But of course Peliwo is just one example among many.