Former Roland Garros champion Ana Ivanovic has made a coaching change.
The former world number one announced today that she is working with Heinz Gunthardt, the former coach of tennis legend Steffi Graf.
Gunthardt will accompany Ana to the BNP Paribas Showdown in New York next week, thus marking the pair’s first event together. Previously, Gunthardt helped Graf win 12 Grand Slam titles.
The appointment of Gunthardt ends, or at least suspends, Ana’s active participation in the adidas Player Development Programme.
The 22-year-old Serbian was formerly working with Sven Groeneveld on a part-time basis.
Greatest news I have hear in a long, long time! I am so happy about this. Guy has a great resume and imo is the perfect fit for Ana. He brought a lot of success to Stefi Graf with her huge forehand, maybe he can help Ana out on hers. Both Graf and Ivanovic do have similar forehands. Obviously Ana isn’t anywhere near the player that Graf was and in the end, it will be on Ana whether she gets out of this slump or not, but this is a step in the right direction and Gunthardt will certainly help. Just please take Adam’s advice Ana and be patient with him. The results wont come overnight. It will take lots of time, hard work and effort to get back to your form of 2008. I thought she fired Craig Kardon too soon. But man am I so happy about this news!
Read more: http://www.gototennisblog.com/2010/02/22/ana-ivanovic-to-work-with-steffi-grafs-coach/#ixzz0gIMlOCdS
Sorry about the gototennis link. I copied my comment there and that the link showed up.
I don’t know anything about the quality of the Adidas Player Development Programme, but I do know that a player with a lot of talent is exiting far too soon from tournaments. Ana has much more to offer than we have seen recently. I am pulling for you Ana – only you know what is really going on, so I say kudos for stepping up and positioning yourself to make things right!
Let’s see and wait if Heinz can fix Ana’s confidence. As said by Kardon, Ana’s main problem is her emotions and that alone destroy her confidence and focus during a match. The ball toss can be immediately fixed by Heinz but the emotions, it’s all up to Ana.
Jelena Dokic tried Heinz Gunthardt as her coach in the first half of 2003. He tried to add new attacking options to Jelena’s game, such as taking the ball earlier and coming in more. No doubt this was intended to pay long-term dividends, but Jelena couldn’t reconcile practice with match-play, and endured a severe slump under his tutelage.
In my opinion, girls like Jelena and Ana need a more understanding coach than Gunthardt (Jelena found one in Borna Bikic), and preferably one who is well-versed in sports-psychology.
Ana did need to get rid of Sven Groeneveld, because he wasn’t allowed to coach her when she played another adidas-player. That’s just not acceptable when it happens in a Major final, as it did in the French Open finals of 2007 and 2008.
This is good news, and I am sure that the new coach will defintely help Ana to get back her old form.
Ana , please be patient and keep on your hard work, I love to see you win some title this year.It is so painful to see you lose,
Good luck and
May God bless you