The ‘other guy’ theory of coaches is a sporting truism.
A team that loses more than it wins with a so-called ‘players’ coach’, someone who specializes in relating to athletes and creating an easygoing atmosphere, will often replace them with a disciplinarian. Reserved coaches who don’t find success get replaced by high-energy, emotional types big on motivation. The bookish sort who focusses on the X’s and O’s comes back when that act wears thin.
Tennis players are no different, the latest cases being Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, who dueled on Tuesday in Beijing at the penultimate WTA 1000 tournament of the year.
Both players entered the year with high hopes but did not meet them. After early eliminations from the U.S. Open — Gauff lost in the fourth round, Osaka in the second — they both announced coaching changes.
Gauff jettisoned Brad Gilbert, one of the biggest personalities in the sport. He is an ESPN commentator and the former coach of Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi, with a grand unified theory of tennis, otherwise known as Winning Ugly. Gauff then brought in Matt Daly, a little-known grip specialist, to work alongside Jean-Christophe Faurel, the low-profile French coach who has worked with Gauff on and off since she was 14.
Faurel most recently rejoined Gauff’s entourage last spring, to work alongside Gilbert. Gilbert and Gauff barely knew each other when she hired him in the summer of 2023. Weeks later, she was U.S. Open champion.
Osaka, meanwhile, pivoted from Wim Fissette, the quiet, cerebral Belgian who helped her win two Grand Slam titles in 2020 and 2021. Fissette would be fine if he never appeared on television. Osaka’s new coach is Patrick Mouratoglou, the former coach of Serena Williams. He has a gift for motivation and self-promotion, with a brand empire that includes an academy in the south of France, plus the freewheeling Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) tennis exhibition events and coaching camps at luxury resorts.
He was almost too recognizable for Osaka. Mouratoglou’s history with Williams and his presence in the game made her want to avoid him.
“His persona is so big,” Osaka said in a press conference in Beijing. So big that she was skeptical of his coaching abilities: anyone coaching the greatest female player of the modern era might have enjoyed their part in the success of Williams.
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