Sven Groeneveld - "Only Monica Seles worked even more intensely than Maria Sharapova"
Star coach Sven Groeneveld described his path from college player to the side of Monica Seles, Michael Stich or Maria Sharapova on Thursday evening at "Kasi Live" (weekdays from 6:00 p.m. in our Instagram account "tennisnetnews").
by tennisnet.com
last edit: Apr 30, 2020, 08:18 pm
As a young man, Sven Groeneveld also followed the dream of many tennis players: he wanted to be a professional on the ATP tour, but did not make it past 800th place. The almost 55-year-old Groeneveld told Christopher Kas that he lacked the right leadership. Exactly this failure still motivates him to act as a coach.
My career as an instructor started after three years as a player at two US colleges in Japan. Groeneveld was recruited there in autumn 1991 to play with Monica Seles. The original plan was: only for a week. But Seles wanted to end the year after the apparently successful attempt with Groeneveld. The coach had to make a decision and lost a job in an academy in Japan.
He would have been the perfect hitting partner at that time, Groeneveld added, because he could play the backhand with one hand like Graf and Sabatini. The only thing he didn't do for his player was putting on a skirt.
There was an incident with Seles in Barcelona in spring 1992: Groeneveld had spoken to the father of an opponent of the Yugoslav, a Dutch compatriot, Father Seles was not happy about it; there was a first break with the family, even though Monica had sided with him. The Seles family did not want to continue the French Open with him, but instead the tournaments on grass again. Stan Francker, then the strong man in Dutch tennis and also known in Austria since his time with Thomas Muster, Horst Skoff and Alexander Antonitsch, advised Groeneveld to stop immediately.
Michael Stich has to get up earlier
So it went on to Mark McCormack in Florida. The legendary manager had a large network that brought Sven Groeneveld back to Kimiko Date in Japan in December 1992. Then came the time with Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario. In 1994 he told her that she had to build a strong team around her, he gave her three months to do it. She did that too, but after a private incident, he decided to end the collaboration. That was a mistake, his biggest one, as Groeneveld frankly admitted on "Kasi Live".
The Dutch star coach described his philosophy as follows: You first have to get to know the person, then the player. That means doing your homework, preparing yourself. And you have to find out what the player needs. And that is his approach - be it technical, mental or physical.
Talks to father Sharapova
Michael Stich was the first man he coached. In 1995, Stich joined Bollettieri, who was working with Boris Becker at that time. Nick had said to Stich that he could come, but the conflict with Becker meant that Bollettieri couldn't take care of Stich. Groeneveld picked up the Wimbledon winner from 1991 at the airport, and Stich was desperate.
"Sven, I don't know what to do. This week you are the boss, I do everything you say. ”Whereupon Groeneveld started training for the following day at 9:00 am. Stich said that he never started training before 10. Whereupon Groeneveld asked: "Who is the boss now?" On stitch: "Ok, then at 9 o'clock." The collaboration had also borne fruit immediately, Stich won the tournament in Los Angeles.
The most prominent client was probably Maria Sharapova. That had a large team around her, including her father. "I spoke more to Yury than to Maria," said Groeneveld, who had nothing but praise for the Russian, who had resigned in early 2020. “You have to be extremely on the ball, always give 100 percent, because Maria always left everything on the pitch. Also in their cooperation with the sponsors, partners and the team. Only Monica Seles was even more intensive than Maria Sharapova. “Seles had trained for three hours and would have gone to the wall for half an hour.