Now Djokovic has lost coach Agassi
NOVAK DJOKOVIC’S problems continue to pile up, with Andre Agassi severing their coaching relationship and announcing his departure with a parting shot.
After less than a year the American has decided that an already limited partnership was not working and allowed the news to filter out via ESPN’s commentary team rather than via the player himself.
While offering the usual good wishes to his former client for the future, Agassi also felt compelled to say: ‘With only the best of intentions I tried to help Novak.
‘We far too often found ourselves agreeing to disagree.’
The two came together prior to the French Open last year, although Agassi always stressed that it was not a full-blown coaching arrangement, even saying he was working ‘on my own dime’.
He seemed to be only fitting it in around other commitments, including keeping a close eye on his son’s baseball career.
Djokovic took the rest of last season off after retiring from his Wimbledon quarter-final.
He made the fourth round of the Australian Open in January and had a minor procedure on his elbow. He returned for last month’s Masters events at Indian Wells and Miami but looked at odds with himself in losing his opening matches at both to inferior opposition.
He admitted he did not know what his plans were and whether he would feature at the forthcoming Monte Carlo Open in his adopted hometown. He continues to work with former Czech player Radek Stepanek, who was absent from Miami as well and said to be at home with his partner Nicole Vaidisova (to whom he was once married) and who is now expecting their first child. Stepanek is notably close to Ivan Lendl, who is known to be seeking a coaching role after splitting with Andy Murray.
Lendl visited the Miami Open last week — he lives not far up the coast — but perhaps a more likely job would seem to be with rising German Alex Zverev, who plays John Isner in today’s final. Zverev’s fitness trainer is Jez Green, who used to work with Lendl on Team Murray.