Konta splits from coach after dismal end to her season
Belgian trainer Fissette leaves British No1’s team Mutual decision follows disastrous drop in form
Few could have imagined, when Johanna Konta walked out for the Wimbledon semi-final on July 13, that she would end the season by splitting with her coach. Yet that was the latest development yesterday in what has been the ultimate Jekyll-and-hyde season.
At that high point of the English midsummer, Konta stood just four sets away from a major title. Even when she succumbed to a command performance from Venus Williams – the eventual runner-up – she still climbed to No4 in the world. Since then, though, she has barely collected another rankings point.
Yesterday, news arrived that Wim Fissette – an experienced coach who has previously worked with three world No 1s in Kim Clijsters, Simona Halep and Victoria Azarenka – had left the camp. In a statement, Konta told her socialmedia followers that the decision was mutual.
Yet it was hard to avoid the suspicion that Fissette was taking the blame for three terrible months on the court – in which Konta has won just two matches from six tournaments entered – and her resulting narrow failure to reach the WTA Finals in Singapore for the second successive year.
This is also the second season running that Konta has concluded her business by parting with a coach. Only last December, she moved on from Esteban Carril, the softly spoken Spaniard who had helped her climb an extraordinary 137 places in just 18 months.
In that instance, Carril can hardly have been paying for a performance slump, as Konta had concluded her season with lucrative runs to the final of Beijing and the semi-final of Zhuhai. The issue was rumoured to have more to do with his request for a pay rise, although this has never been confirmed.
Fissette was trialled at the National Tennis Centre last winter and seemed a good fit, for he is a similarly understated character to Carril. With her new coach at her side, Konta began the season well at the Australian Open – where a dialledin Serena Williams proved too strong in the quarter-final – and then collected the biggest title to be won by a British woman in 40 years: April’s Miami Open.
Although the European claycourt swing proved a disappointment – hardly a surprise, given Konta’s reluctance to slide in to her shots like a true dirtballer – her Wimbledon run suggested that everything was coming together in time for the hard-court run-in. Instead, she unexpectedly lost her way on her favourite surface, with a nervy first-round defeat by world No78 Aleksandra Krunic at the US Open now looking like the turning point of her season.
So, it is back to the coaching selection game, with likely tryouts for interested parties to be staged in the coming months. Could Carril, whose current client – British teenager Jay Clarke – shares an agent with Konta, perhaps make a comeback? Or what about Thomas Hogstedt, another big-hitter who has worked with Maria Sharapova and was most recently seen helping Russian world No 33 Ekaterina Makarova?
Either way, we should not expect any rapid developments. “The goal is to get a new coach or coaches in place as soon as possible,” said Konta in her statement, “but the focus will be on making the right decision rather than a quick decision.” As for the rest of her season, Konta yesterday announced that she was turning down the opportunity to be an injury backup in Singapore, despite the $68,000 (£51,000) paid out to anyone fulfilling that role, because of an ongoing foot problem.
She is also declining to participate in the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai – a tournament for the “next eight” women on the list after those who qualify for Singapore.
“Both are amazing events and I will really miss being part of them,” said Konta, “but I want to make sure that I am fully fit to start preparations for what I hope will be an exciting 2018 season.”
Looking at her social-media feed, four of Konta’s past six posts on Twitter have not related to tennis, but to her developing passion for baking. As with Fissette’s departure, this is hardly the way she would have planned to end the year.