France team boss Ruckelshausen - "special" task against Thiem and Co.
Richard Ruckelshausen traveled to Australia on behalf of Günter Bresnik as Gael Monfils' coach. This earned the Austrian the captaincy in the French ATP Cup team and thus a meeting with Dominic Thiem .
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Jan 26, 2021, 01:33 pm
In three days, Richard Ruckelshausen also had the fourteen-day quarantine in Melbourne behind him, the Austrian, who briefly became Gael Monfils' coach and French captain at the ATP Cup, comes back to his hotel room at the agreed telephone appointment. In fact, on this Australia Day, the return from the facility was a bit delayed, otherwise everything goes according to a strict daily schedule.
“You sit in your room and wait for the knock so that you can be driven to training,” says Ruckelshausen. Then it is important to use the almost five hours as efficiently as possible, in addition to a tennis unit and the time in the fitness room, there is also eating. “Of course we'd all rather train more, but that's just the circumstances.” After all, the Monfils training group is still allowed out, as no fellow passenger tested positive on the approach to Melbourne.
Monfils had chosen Emil Ruusuvuori as a partner for the first week, and it stayed that way in week two, the organizers don't want to take any chances. Monfils have trained in the John Cain Arena in the past few days, Ruckelshausen continues, where the French will also play their group games at the ATP Cup against Italy and Austria. With Richard Ruckelshausen as team manager.
Attractive task against Thiem
"I have already contacted the other three team members, but of course we have to practice social distancing here," says Ruckelshausen, who actually traveled with two Swiss juniors to Günter Bresnik's training camp in Tenerife and then briefly to Switzerland and Dubai. Bresnik has taken over the agenda of the head coach at Monfils, Ruckelshausen is his extended arm in Australia.
The group constellation is certainly not without its charm. “Playing against your own country is of course something special,” Ruckelshausen continued. Who knows Dominic Thiem well, of course, and raves about the exceptional position of the current number three in the world.
His full concentration is on the French team, which includes Gael Monfils, Benoit Paire, Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin. The young coach is aware of the special dynamism in the L´Équipe Tricolore, as it was marveled at at the ATP Cup last year. What is important is not what his idea of coaching is, but what the players need.
Monfils can beat anyone
Everyone needs a piece of normality in everyday life. As far as Ruckelshausen was able to observe this on his way to and from Melbourne Park, things are a little more relaxed in the Australian metropolis than in this country. “But people still wear masks in the restaurants or on public transport.” However, it is difficult to plan for the time immediately after the quarantine - those players who have been in hard for more than ten days have priority when booking practice areas Quarantine.
Like his mentor Günter Bresnik, Richard Ruckelshausen sees his trip to Australia as a great opportunity to gain a foothold in tennis as a coach. And that with a player who “can beat anyone”. And who, like everyone else, has to adjust to the constantly changing conditions: "We had 17 degrees here, then 39 - and today it is raining at 18 degrees," Ruckelshausen concludes. The good news: a player like Gael Monfils can train on a covered court if in doubt.