Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Welcome to the secret and complicated lives of professional tennis coaches.
It is a cut-throat world of constant travel – upwards of 30 weeks a year – pressure-filled short-term contracts, reliance on tournament bonuses, and enduring fierce public and private abuse from players.
Sacking the coach is often the first solution when a player is in a slump, or if someone higher-profile becomes available, while money disputes sometimes end in court.
Bryan and Ben Shelton at the Laver Cup in Vancouver.Credit: Getty Images
Bryan Shelton – a former top-60 player and long-time college coach who is now guiding his son Ben’s career – cringes watching some interactions between coach and pupil.
“The relationship in general flips because in junior tennis, and even college tennis, the coach is the boss – but on tour, there is a role reversal for most of the athletes and coach,” Shelton told this masthead.
“A lot of times, coaches walk on eggshells, not wanting to upset them, so it can be difficult. I see some young coaches abused at times, and think, ‘Gee, that’s not good’. I hate how coaches are talked to and disrespected.”
Australia’s David Taylor, who led Sam Stosur to the 2011 US Open title and Alicia Molik to the top 10, is one of the longest-serving and most-respected coaches on the circuit.
Among the stars he worked with across the years were Martina Hingis, Ana Ivanovic and Naomi Osaka, while he most recently oversaw world junior No.1 Emerson Jones’ development. Taylor has a strict stance on his players not verbally targeting him.
Two-time Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka shares a moment with her coach Anton Dubrov after the 2024 US Open final.Credit: Getty Images
“I’m not going to be one of those coaches who are abused in the box,” Taylor said.
“I distinctly remember the first time it happened to me. One of the girls I coached was a match away from getting back into the top 10, which was significant for her. She just won her first-ever grasscourt event, and then we went to Eastbourne, and it was very stressful.
“I was pretty shocked by the language. I always look at coaching as quite a collaborative thing, and I do my best for the player – I just hope that respect extends back.”
However, world No.1 and dual Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka, whose coach Anton Dubrov has been with her since 2020, said on-court outbursts were not a sign of disrespect.
“What I’m looking for in a coach is, first of all, to understand that when I’m getting crazy on court, it’s nothing personal,” Sabalenka said. “I just need to throw these emotions [out].”
Wim Fissette coached Naomi Osaka at stages from 2020 to 2024.Credit: AP
The hiring process
In a relatively recent development, the ATP and WTA tours started providing players with an internal list that is updated weekly of heavily vetted free-agent coaches who must be accredited.
Coaches need to be part of the WTA coach program, which gives them the ability to list their availability on the WTA PlayerZone. You could call it Tinder for tennis (in a coaching sense).
Player agents are involved regardless, whether approaching a prospective coach or vice versa. But the process is not always easy, even for big-name coaches.
Just ask Wim Fissette, who was briefly left in the wilderness after stopping working with Naomi Osaka in 2022.
“I wanted to know what was going on: ‘Is there someone thinking about changing? Is someone thinking about me? – but I didn’t want to be calling someone every week’,” Fissette said.
“I spoke to coaches from different sports, and they were surprised we, in tennis, had to do that ourselves. It’s never easy to negotiate a contract for yourself, especially when you’re sitting on the other side of the table from a big agent who negotiates every week.”
All of this led to the creation of Unbox Sports, a sports agency for coaches that was launched at last year’s US Open.
Founding member and CEO Yannick Yoshizawa does the negotiating on coaches’ behalf, while Fissette is an ambassador.
Fissette, who has also worked with the likes of Kim Clijsters, Simona Halep and Victoria Azarenka, reunited with Osaka after her maternity leave, but they split again in September last year.
Patrick Mouratoglou now coaches Osaka.Credit: Getty Images
Osaka now works with Patrick Mouratoglou, while Fissette is coaching five-time major champion Iga Swiatek, who parted ways with her coach of three years, Tomasz Wiktorowski.
Another Australian, Roger Rasheed, who coached Lleyton Hewitt, Gael Monfils, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Grigor Dimitrov, said “status” was still the easiest way for a coach to secure their next job.
From that point, the discussion around how many weeks a coach is willing to spend travelling is the next deal-maker – or breaker.
A coach willing to travel for only 20 weeks would need to operate in a co-coaching capacity, for example. Something Rasheed is passionate about is coaches ensuring they enter into a legitimate contract.
“It’s a living-on-the-edge environment for the majority because you’re playing in an industry where the reality is you lose most weeks, and you lose on your own, so it’s quite emotional,” Rasheed said.
“Everyone is on a different rollercoaster, and for coaches, it’s a vulnerable landscape.
Dominic Thiem.Credit: AP
“A lot of coaches don’t have contracts, which is staggering. I’ve always been a big advocate for the coaching environment being a lot more professional.”
Even when there are contracts in place, coaches often settle for three-month arrangements. The end of the Australian summer is a common time for coach changes.
How much are coaches really paid?
This process is so secretive that even the coaches, themselves, don’t know the exact going rate – but Fissette thinks very few of them would be on a $1 million-plus salary.
Part of the reason is because it can get quite complicated, in part because there is less of a standardised approach and so many different people negotiating on their own.
Scenarios vary wildly from weekly salaries and bonuses, to a percentage of prizemoney or even all income, including endorsements, in some cases. The latter was the case for Dominic Thiem and his old coach Gunter Bresnik, but it turned ugly and eventually resulted in an out-of-court settlement.
It can also differ if expenses are not covered, so the coach’s percentage spikes but they have to pay their own way to travel.
Bonuses also vary by tournament prestige, and the player’s ranking.
At the slams, bonuses for coaches with, say, top-20 players typically kick in from the round of 16 or quarter-finals. They may be as high as 10 per cent of a player’s prizemoney, although Taylor said that number was beginning to slide as prizemoney increased.
Bryan Shelton keeps a close eye on his charge, son Ben, at Wimbledon.Credit: Getty Images
The reality for many coaches is that their wage often depends greatly on how much their player earns, rather than having the security of a guaranteed salary.
Sometimes coaches will make investments in players, accepting a lower fee initially in the hope the athlete has the potential to reach the top of the game.
The situation is often different again when a childhood coach graduates to the professional tour with their charge, or in family partnerships such as Bryan and Ben Shelton.
Even the coaching approach is different, Bryan Shelton said.
“For the most part, especially early on, I coached Ben a little harder, stronger and tougher [than I did others] because I knew how much he could take,” Shelton said.
“He wanted to be coached hard, but he also knows I love him regardless of an outcome or result or anything like that.”
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