Serena’s coach found a new mentee! The famous American will not return to the court?
The last official match of the famous American Serena Williams played at Wimbledon-2021. That time she dropped in the first set to Belarus’ Alexandra Sasnovich with the score 3-3. Since then Serena has been busy only with her business investments, going out in public, and not forgetting the advertising of her sponsors. Judging by the social networks of the 23-time Grand Slam champion, training and preparing for tournaments was out of the question. All this time, her mentor of many years, Patrick Muratoglu, gave commentaries on TV, worked to promote his academy and advised some famous players, including Tsitsipas, Djokovic and Medvedev. However, he didn’t have a full-fledged coaching job. There were various rumors, and then finally everything was determined. Patrick introduced his new mentee.
In his social networks Patrick Muratoglu rushed to share the important news with his followers: “Today I start a new chapter in my coaching career. I became a permanent coach of Simona Halep. In the last eight months, I realized how much I miss coaching. It’s my life’s passion, and I feel like I still have a lot to give in that sense. Simone practiced at my academy before the Indian Wells tournament. At the end of the week she asked me if I could be her coach. I have incredible respect for her, but it wasn’t a question at the time. A few weeks went by. I talked to Serena Williams, and that door opened for me-at least for a short time-to work with someone else. I’ll keep you posted on the news.”
Apparently, Serena has no plans to return to the court anytime soon. Recall that after giving birth on September 1, 2017, the American has not won any more Grand Slam tournaments, although she reached the finals four times. Williams dreamed to repeat the record of the famous Australian Margaret Court – to win the 24th Slam. However, the American’s results have been in decline since 2021. At the Australian Open she reached the semifinals, at Roland Garros – to the 4th round, and at Wimbledon she even withdrew in the first round. Since then Serena has not played anywhere, but she has not announced the end of her career either. The tennis player was asked about it several times, but she avoided answering. In September, the younger but most decorated of the Williams sisters will turn 41. At the moment, she has slipped to 246th in the WTA rankings. Will she ever return to the court?
As for Patrick, there have been rumors floating around the tour for a couple of months now that he could become one of the coaches of world number one Novak Djokovic as of the primaries, especially since the Serb broke up with his longtime mentor Marian Vajda not too long ago. These rumors were fueled by the fact that Djokovic often trains at Muratoglu’s academy along with Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Pavlyuchenkova and other famous tennis players. In the end, however, Patrick made a different decision-not to coach the world number one on the men’s circuit, but to restart the career of the former leader of the women’s tour.
Romanian tennis player Simona Halep trained for many years under Australian coach Darren Cahill. This collaboration helped Simona become world number one in October 2017, reach two Slam finals and then win her debut major, the 2018 Roland Garros. Simone and Darren broke up and got back together several times. But since the start of the 2022 season, Halep has been without a coach. In total during her career, the Romanian won 23 titles, including two Slams, was at the top of the WTA rankings for 64 weeks (11th in history). But at the moment she’s already dropped to the 20th position.
After the Indian Wells semifinals, where she lost to future champion Iga Sviontek, Halep withdrew from Miami and Charleston and will have to play her first tournament in Madrid, already under Patrick Muratoglu.
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