It is a very, very rare situation when a parent can act as a player’s coach indefinitely. Absolutely a parent can take a player to a certain point in their career but then it is time for the player to break away and...
It is a very, very rare situation when a parent can act as a player’s coach indefinitely. Absolutely a parent can take a player to a certain point in their career but then it is time for the player to break away and for a parent to just be a parent.
That is the situation with Caroline Wozniacki who has taken the step to separate her professional life from her family life by parting ways with her father Piotr who has been her coach since childhood.
There has to be an independent view given to a player. He did a great job up to now but Wozniacki is losing matches she should not be losing. Sure she needs to take responsibility in a match and think for herself, but she is failing to take the step into Grand Slam finals. It’s all very well to win run-of-the-mill events but a player’s reputation is judged mainly around the four majors and she has failed to live up to that situation.
The decision to split was apparently reached at Wimbledon and we now wait to see who she will appoint to guide her through the next phase of things. Quite possibly as an adidas contracted player she could chose to go the route of someone like Andy Murray and use the services of the adidas staff coaches like Darren Cahill or Sven Groenefeld who she has been consulting with.
Whoever she goes with or whatever she decides, it seems that Mr Wozniacki could just about have run out of ideas on how his daughter should be winning matches.
Wozniacki has been left in tears on a few occasions with some of the losses she has suffered and that will do nothing for her confidence.
She needs to have fresh ideas planted into her mind. She needs to have someone outside her own flesh and blood barking instructions to her on the practice court or during the change of ends in a match when she calls for her coach as is ridiculously allowed on the regular women’s tour. She has not had that for quite a while. I mean how would you feel if you had your father berating you in front of thousands of people during a match, whether it’s in Polish (their family history language), Danish (their naturalised tongue) or Swahili.
Caroline Wozniacki is a tremendous player and she should be producing the results way more than she has.
Splitting with your coach on the eve of a Grand Slam, the US Open starts on the 29th, is never a great prospect but maybe it’s the shot in the arm she needs.
