“Simona Halep directly outplayed Serena Williams” New coach Patrick Mouratoglou compares his former and current student
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Serena Williams and Simona Halep after the 2019 Wimbledon finals, Patrick Mouratoglou
Former World No. 1 Simona Halep recently announced her new head coach in the form of French tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou who has been the coach of 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams since 2012 in one of the most successful partnerships on the WTA Tour.
Post her 4th round exit at the 2022 Australian Open, Halep fired all of her coaches and played for the next events without any head coach. The experiment was fairly successful with two semi-final runs in 3 events, including Dubai Championships and the 2022 Indian Wells Open. An untimely injury forced her out of the Miami Open keeping her stuck in the 20th spot in the WTA rankings.
As Simona looks to rise in the rankings, the appointment of Mouratoglou looks promising for his track record with Serena and many other players including Stefanos Tsitsipas and Coco Gauff as well. Mouratoglou recently spoke about his new student and compared her with Serena as well.
“I always respected Simona as a player, when she was playing Serena because I think she’s an amazing competitor. She often gave Serena very difficult matches. I mean Serena beat her most of the time, except for one very important match, which was the Wimbledon final in 2019, where she played amazing tennis. But I respected her game and her intensity.
“And I knew every time Serena played against her, that when Serena lowered her focus a bit, that’s when Simona directly outplayed her. So I respected the player a lot. I did not know her. I barely spoke to her,” said Mouratoglou in his recent interview with Tennis Majors also recalling the 2019 Wimbledon finals when Simona stopped Serena from winning her historic 24th major that would have tied her with Margaret Court.
Simona Halep and Patrick Mouratoglou could team up for the first time in Stuttgart
Having reached the semi-finals last year at the 2021 Stuttgart Open, Halep is likely to make a trip once again to the Porsche Grand Prix and could be under Patrick’s tutelage for the first time in an event. With Simona set to skip the Qualifiers of the BJK Cup in the next week, the pair of Simona and Patrick will have a week to plan out their strategies going into the Clay season.
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Sarthak Shitole
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