Mirabelle got beaten again 3-6 1-6. Things have fallen apart here. I suspect she has been rather overcoached at this point and has lost her early naturalness and confidence... well something has gone missing for sure, so I'm guessing.
I would suggest (with no inside knowledge!!) just the opposite! Since starting on the tour she has tended to camp in one place - Turkey, Tunisia, Sharm - for months on end playing week after week. I don't think she's travelling with an academy group (but as she's based in France maybe I'm not picking the names up) and unlikely to be in a position to afford an individual coach so I would suggest more likely under than over coached. These 'year round' tennis venues at the bottom of the pyramid are great for getting those first ranking points or giving the ranking a boost but after a couple of weeks the whole atmosphere can be soul destroying. They are a means to an end, something to be got through on the way to somewhere better. Whilst there are obviously individual good players dropping in and out of these venues, the overall standard and level of professionalism is not great and over several months it's easy to drop down to the average instead of improving, which is my suggestion as to what has happened to Mirabelle.
Mirabelle started off being very tightly coached, I think by at least one of her parents plus. Then I read something about a year ago that they were seeking to change her style in order to help her reach the next level. At that point she had reached her CH ranking level of 599, but whilst she was beating people comfortably around her own level and lower, she wasn't beating many players of a higher level - at that point she was experiencing a QF syndrome, winning 2 matches per tournament, but then failing to beat the higher seed to reach the SFs. After then taking some time off, presumably for these changes to her style, when she returned she has never had the same success again. In her profile her coaches are listed as Arlette Njoze, Gary Smith, and Nathalie Ballet. Nathalie Ballet has coached her for some time i believe, and presumably also Arlette is her mother. Her exact coaching arrangement now, I don't know, but I don't believe it is lack of coaching that she has suffered from. Mirabelle is 20 now, so still time to turn it around, but she definitely needs something else at this point if she is to continue.
I'm surprised her mum is her coach as neither of her parents play tennis - although that never held Richard Williams back! As a junior she was based at an academy in France (Esseyric springs to mind but not certain) but since being old enough to play a full schedule has just played week after week without break in the same venues. I too recall someone posting about her taking a break to go back to her academy to work on changes but I think she had started to become less consistent in her results before that happened. It is very hard to stay motivated in these places and also the longer you are there the more players see your game and tell each other about your strengths and weaknesses and strategies which worked initially can become less effective. I wish her well but not sure more weeks in Turkey or Tunisia will see a change in fortunes coming I'm afraid
There certainly was a non regular poster that seemed to be in the know and posted at the beginning of last year explaining that Mirabelle was taking time off to work on her game or some words to that extent.
Whatever the ins and outs, Mirabelle has regressed since 2015 and lately seemingly even more so. Before then from all accounts she had a fairly different quite refreshing attacking game that had a habit of absolutely blitzing lesser opponents before that "QF syndrome". Probably did need good coaching to add consistency but something(s) gone awry.
I know that Mirabelle was doing 'tennis-études' at Tennis Club Barbossi in Mandelieu La Napoule (Alpes-Maritimes).
Pretty sure she was there at least three or four years.
At that sort of set-up, she most certainly won't have lacked for training and coaching. It's one of those studies in the morning, tennis all afternoon sort of places. Plus team matches, individual competition, etc. etc. All very swanky. A real country club on the Cote d'Azur. I believe it's accredited by the FFT as a 'Pole' as well (which means it's serious), although I'm not 100% sure.
But either way, she'll have had good and consistent coaching.
However, I don't know at all what her thinking and set-up is now. And agree with nearly all that's been said above that, whatever way you cut and dice it, it's not working.
I remember similar inexplicable losses in form for other promising players - and I think they were mostly attributable to terminal lack of confidence...Natalie Neri and Amanda Elliott are two that come to mind where they reached a reasonable ranking and looked destined for robust careers, then an unfathomable string of losses they didn't recover from.
I don't recall Natalie Neri but certainly do remember Amanda Elliott, although in her case I seem to remember illness played a part. Thing is, it's relatively easy to get to around 600-ish WTA. Play in enough tournaments winning a round or 2 here and there until you have your 16 counters. Easy to feel confident and positive during that year with the ranking is going up and while being a professional player is still fresh and exciting but the 2nd year is tough. Then a player needs to be playing better to improve that ranking and if they are not, the ranking doesn't improve, the confidence and excitement starts to fade and the ranking eventually starts to drop away a little. I can think of plenty of names who started to fall away about that point - Fran Stephenson, Lucy Brown, Dasha K. I hope Mirabelle works her way through this, but it is clearly a tricky time in a playing career.
edit: typos
-- Edited by The Optimist on Wednesday 21st of June 2017 06:13:54 AM
I'll take any little chink of light that falls on Mirabelle at the moment; anything that can help, that might get her going again, or find some inspiration, some direction.
__________________
Data I post, opinions I offer, 'facts' I assert, are almost certainly all stupidly wrong.
