Separation from Kontaveit - is Coach Tursunov too honest?
Dmitry Tursunov and Anett Kontaveit have ended their coach-player relationship. The Estonian has just jumped to a new career high with second place in the WTA charts.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Jun 07, 2022, 04:03 pm
The dominance of Iga Swiatek at the French Open obscured some interesting side stories, such as that with Anett Kontaveit, a player would move up to second place in the WTA world rankings, who didn't even play that well this year . Well, there was tournament victory in St. Petersburg (in the final against Maria Sakkari), followed by a place in the final in Doha (where Swiatek only conceded Kontaveit two game wins).
The 26-year-old herself did little to increase her prominence after that, in Rome she left the field as a first-round loser (against Petra Martic, albeit after a bye) as in Roland Garros against Ajla Tomljanovic. But good; Second place in the world rankings, that's worth something.
Tursunov and Kontaveit separate
All the more surprising was Dmitry Tursunov's rather unadorned announcement on Monday that he and Kontaveit had ended their collaboration. Tursunov says he is proud and also sad, but all things come to an end, including the good ones.
Very little is usually known about the reasons for breakups like this, but it might be worth looking back a few months in a specific case. Tursunov gave a remarkable interview to the website tennismajors.com. In which he said, among other things, about the rise of Anett Kontaveit: "Well, I would love to say that this is my merit. Apparently she found a way to motivate herself. And I helped her with her game, also with structuring a few things in her head better. But a coach can only provide the information. So my job is to find out what kind of information is best for them at any given moment.”
Or as Patrick Rafter once put it so beautifully: You can only lead a horse to the watering place. It then has to drink itself. Craig O'Shannessy said it in an interview with tennisnet a few days ago in Paris: Basically, the job of a coach consists mainly of picking up balls.
Successful cooperation with Sabalenka
Tursunov, who has also worked successfully with Aryna Sabalenka, continued in an interview with tennismajors: "If a player is not good at something, you have to be honest. You don't do it to offend them: you try to make them better. So there's no point in beating around the bush.” And that's how Dmitry Tursunov has done it with all his players so far.
Which isn't always well received. "Every psychologist today pretty much tells every person who comes to them that he or she needs to separate from the toxic people. So if you yell, "There's an iceberg over there!" you become a toxic person. So sometimes you have to sit and just watch the ship hit the iceberg."
Whether Anett Kontaveit's ship ran into an iceberg and what role Dmitry Tursunov played in it will probably remain open. The success coach will probably not change his speech.