The “other people” theory of coaching is a cliché in sports.
If a team loses more than it loses with a so-called “player coach” (a coach who specializes in working with players and creating a relaxed atmosphere), they are often replaced with someone more disciplined. Conservative coaches who don’t succeed are replaced by high-energy, emotional, and driven coaches. When that behavior wears off, those X’s and O’s nerds will come back.
Tennis players are no exception, with the latest examples being Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka. The pair faced off in Beijing on Tuesday in the penultimate WTA 1000 event of the year.
Both players entered the year with high hopes, but neither came to fruition. After being eliminated early in the U.S. Open – Gauff in the fourth round, Osaka in the second round – they both announced coaching changes.
Goff ditched one of the biggest names in the sport, Brad Gilbert. He is an ESPN commentator and former coach of Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi, and holds the Grand Unified Theory of Tennis, also known as the Winning Ugly. Goff then brought in a little-known grip strength expert, Matt Daly, to work with the low-profile French coach Jean-Christophe Faurel, who He has worked with Gauff on and off since he was 14 years old.
Forell recently rejoined Goff’s staff to work with Gilbert last spring. When Gilbert hired Goff in the summer of 2023, he and Goff barely knew each other.
Osaka, meanwhile, has centered around Wim Fiset, the quiet, cerebral Belgian who helped her win two Grand Slam titles in 2020 and 2021. It doesn’t matter on TV. Osaka’s new coach is Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’ former coach. With a gift for motivation and self-promotion, he has a brand empire that includes an academy in the south of France, as well as freewheeling Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) tennis exhibition tournaments and training camps at luxury resorts.
Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka have changed coaches, but from different tennis perspectives. (Zhang Yanshan/Getty Images)
He’s almost too well-known for Osaka. Mouratoglou’s history with Williams and his performance in games made her want to avoid him.
“His charisma is so great,” Osaka told a news conference in Beijing. So much so that she expressed doubts about his coaching abilities: Anyone who coached the greatest female player of the modern era likely played a role in Williams’ success.
“Then I met him, talked to him and worked with him on the pitch,” she said.
“He’s definitely a very good coach.”
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Long-time senator, US secretary of state and US climate czar John Kerry once simplified his philosophy on governance, war and diplomacy to “when you get it wrong, get it right as quickly as possible”.
Sports aphorisms often cite the first law of holes: When you’re in the hole, stop digging.
Both basically sum up the coaching priorities of Osaka and Gauff. Players typically make these moves at the end of the season, not with two months left. Gauff and Osaka rocked Asia, which was especially important for Osaka, the Japanese torchbearer for the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. Next up are the WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for which Gauff may qualify, and the Billie Jean Gold Cup in Malaga, Spain, where Osaka is scheduled to compete.
But by mid-September, they had all the data they needed to conclude they were either heading in the wrong direction (Goff) or stalled (Osaka).
While Gauff’s results were off target – losing to Emma Navarro in the fourth round at Wimbledon before Donna Vecchi beat her in the third round at the Paris Olympics – the bigger issue was technique . One of Gilbert’s greatest strengths as a coach, his ability to mask his weaknesses, has disappeared.
High-level opponents have figured out how to counter the looping forehand he introduces to mask the tremors on her side. They would step in and catch the rising ball before it bounced high enough to trap them in the back of the court.
During the match against Navarro at Wimbledon, she begged Gilbert to tell her something when she realized she didn’t have the tools she needed to escape Navarro.
Then there’s her serve. At the U.S. Open, she lost to Navarro in the fourth round, which included 19 double faults.
“I don’t want to lose like this again,” she told reporters afterwards.
Gilbert, who has forgotten more about tennis than most will ever know, will never sell himself as a service expert or even the kind of coach someone as stuck in technical limitations as Gauff needs now. Even during Gilbert’s tenure, Gauff worked with Roddick on some minor service adjustments.
In an interview last week, Gilbert declined to be specific about his time working with Goff but said overall it was a positive experience.
He believes the ultimate parameters of tennis have not changed. Players have to figure out their own strengths, and then they have to figure out what their opponents are good at. They then plan to play to their own strengths during the game while undercutting their opponents’ strengths. but Gilbert, 63, who has been playing professionally for more than four decades, knows what to do. Once a player wins a Grand Slam, expectations rise, even if competition remains fierce. Everybody wants to win, and there are only four majors a year.
Gilbert said there was more unpredictability in the women’s game, but “there’s still not a lot of opportunities.”
“Every coaching experience is a unique experience and you keep moving forward,” he added. “That’s a beautiful thing.”
At just 20 years old, Gauff is impatient for success, but she has a long-term view. She is treating the Asian Autumn Championships as an extended pre-season, prioritizing progress over wins and a top-eight finish this season that would qualify her for those season-ending tour finals.
Coco Gauff’s forehand has long been a weakness against top opponents. (Zhang Yanshan/Getty Images)
Her team wants the coach to talk less about her; she’s found that the subtle changes Daley has made are starting to pay off.
Dailey, 45, played at Notre Dame and briefly coached Denis Shapovalov. He is the founder of a company that sells a gadget called GripMD that wraps around the racquet handle to help players use the traditional Continental grip.
Gauff hits her forehand with a heavy Western grip, essentially holding the racquet underneath the handle. Don’t expect her to switch to a continental forehand grip anytime soon – it just doesn’t work. Her immediate focus is on her serve, but Dividends may take some time to show up on the statistics sheet. She had six double faults and 27 unforced errors in two sets on Tuesday, which she tied with Osaka before he withdrew with a back injury.
If Gauff is thinking long-term, Osaka wants results now. This is not always the case.
She’s had tough draws all season, especially when she nearly knocked out Iga Swiatek at the French Open. At the time, she was introspective and coined a motto of her own: The results weren’t coming, she told reporters. Fisette and Osaka are focused on her comeback — this season and the next five years. By the summer and fall, tennis will move to hard courts, and it’s on hard courts that Osaka has built its reputation, and that’s their mantra.
The wait gradually eroded Osaka’s confidence. Karolina Muchova told reporters after she beat her in New York that a part of her dies when she loses. That Osaka is not the sarcastic, generous Paris Osaka. The French Open is a lifetime ago for her and she believes she will have even greater success on her favorite surface. Muchova reached the semifinals at the U.S. Open and was probably one volley away from the final, and she was pretty much doing what Osaka wanted.
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Osaka and the rest of the locker room knew she needed to come back better, improve her second serve and regain the confidence that, in her best moments, has made her an absolute banker in clutch situations. The bottom line is that this has always been her superpower, but it’s all but gone this year.
That’s why she switched to Mouratoglou with two months left in the 2024 season. She is currently ranked 73rd in the world and is desperate to break into the top 32 so she can be seeded at the Australian Open in January.
Her former coach Fisette was known as a master strategist and tennis technician. Confidence comes from the consequences of his world. He shares Mouratoglou’s belief in playing aggressively and with intensity when getting results, but he’s not anyone’s definition of a hype man. Mouratoglou might anger the postman by delivering the mail.
The China Open is the first official tournament played by Naomi Osaka and Patrick Mouratoglou together. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)
Before reconnecting with Fisette, Osaka considered hiring Mouratoglou as she planned her return from maternity leave. At the time she chose the Belgians because of their history of success. When it doesn’t come back, After the U.S. Open, she and Mouratoglou worked together in California before deciding to play on the women’s tour together.
“I don’t want to regret it,” Osaka added last week in Beijing.
“At this point in my career, I really need to learn as much as I can. Patrick seems to be the one with the information.
They got off to a strong start with three straight wins, including Osaka’s first comeback from a set down in more than two years against Yulia Putintseva. But eEven the best coaches can’t have much success with injured players.
After shaking hands with Gauff and before the American carried her bag off the court, Osaka said her back had stiffened to the point of locking up in training. She was able to start, but her condition worsened as the game progressed.
“Totally worth it though, haha,” she wrote on Threads.
Sounds like something Mouratoglou would say.
(Top photo: Zhang Yanshan/Getty Images)
