Week 14 - WTA Premier ($800K) - Charleston, USA Clay

indiana · Tennis legend

Week 14 - WTA Premier ($800K) - Charleston, USA Clay

flamingowings · All-time great

Who knows if Joyce is the right coach? People say similar about Garbine Muguruza's coach and how terrible he is but there is a reason why she stays with him.

If Joyce truly isn't working out then I hope Jo can find someone who does. It unfortunately could be a coincidence (new coach, bad form, no confidence continuing the poor form...etc)

What Mlandenovic did was go and play doubles - and she won the Australian doubles title. And ok, her singles form still isnt great. Jo is a fairly decent doubles player herself.

Michael D · All-time great

blob wrote:
That seems like projection to me.
In 2017 she won her second WTA title, a Premier, Sydney; won the biggest title by a GB woman since Virginia in '77, Miami one step below a Slam.
She also reached a Slam QF, only losing to a certain Ms. S. Williams, another SF, only losing to a certain Ms. V. Williams, and had an excellent grass season generally.
After Wimbledon was the problem, and Jo has spoken at length in her manfdatory pieces and interviews (as a part of the top 10 player commitment) with WTA, about how the stress, pressure, and magnitude of that occasion and her success and exposure there really knocked her stars out of alignment.
That is usual, and we often see it - first huge success in front of a home crowd.
She hasn't found any way to shake herself out of the daze though, and keeps doing the right things, she believes, and 'trusting in the process'.
The death, and manner of that death, of Sr. Coto is undoubtedly a trauma that everyone around him carries with them, and it will have a lasting effect.
But Jo did just fine after this, not just a little or on a few occasions, she literally rewrote dozens of chapters of GB womens tennis history.
It's greatest impact may have been a desire for a change of scene, and the ending of the relationship with Carrill & Garcia (both of whom I still have utmost regard for, and wish we could employ with some other Brits somehow) - but we don't know that.
The same thing happened with Fissette, and it's nigh impossible to make the causal link on that occasion. Perhpas that was just form based, perhaps Jo likes to change coaches once she thinks she's gotten everything out of the relationship that she can. On some times that is a quick 'info blast' on other things it's a slow burn. Who knows?

I think the current coaching arrangement is deleterious to progress. I don't like Joyce, but then, I don't know him. I just hear bad things about him, and can't overlook his past.

You know who I think would be an absolutely perfect fit for Jo, and who isn't really doing anything much at the moment? Carlos Rodriguez. Make the call.

Whatever happens. My worry, hope, pessimism and best wishes levels are dangerously high. She's so good for us, we need her.

Yes, maybe I just don't like Joyce too for similar reasons, and the rest fits the story, since I can't understand why he would be hired. I don't think he'll be the solution so hope she does find a better fit soon...

indiana · Tennis legend

Heather & Buzarnescu

4-6 6-3

MTB

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 6th of April 2018 10:14:10 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

8 MPs biggrin

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Fantastic !!!! That will do Heather good.

indiana · Tennis legend

QF: Heather WATSON/Mihaela BUZARNESCU (GBR/ROU) 142 (73 + 69) beat Raquel ATAWO/Anna-Lena GROENEFELD (USA/GER) 52 (34 + 18) 4-6 6-3 [10-1]

Strongbow · All-time great

Really confuse

emma · Strong Club Player

it really is, almost like someone has dismantled her just to see how she works and unfortunately cant put her back together again. Or, maybe, like indie said, it simply is, that, without her former mind coach (which is very sad and tragic) this has been a delayed response to that event.

which reminds me, again, that steven has not been seen on here for a while. Please come back soon Mr Man!

blob · All-time great

emma wrote:

it really is, almost like someone has dismantled her just to see how she works and unfortunately cant put her back together again.

I like this analogy.

It reminds me of a time, a million years ago, when the golfer Nick Faldo was at the top of his game, and the best player in the world; favourite for every major. He had already remodeeled his swing, and it was repeatable, and grooved, reliable and surpassing. But, he wanted more, and couldn't stop tinkering. He tried to take it all apart again, to make it even better, his coach, David Leadbetter, was all about bio-mechanical simplicity and repeatability - you broke the movements down into simple chunks and just let the natural movements of the body do the work. Great. Except it never came back together, and he faded away.

Amongst elite performance athletes is there ever enough time to just say enough is enough? Leave it as it is, it's pretty great now.
Perhaps there's a little bit of that to Jo's current situation. Searching for that extra 1-2% broke up the machine, and it's back together, but like an IKEA wardrobe, there's somehow a bag of spare washers and screws on the side. It looks right, but something ain't right.

indiana · Tennis legend

SF: Heather WATSON/Mihaela BUZARNESCU (GBR/ROU) 142 (73+69) vs (3) Andreja KLEPAC/Maria Jose MARTINEZ SANCHEZ (SLO/ESP) CR 40 (20+20)

Due on court at 10.45 am local, 3.45 pm BST.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Although it was never confirmed but I have read it a couple of times the reason why Johanna Konta split with Esteban Carril was his request for a pay rise. When Jo split with Wim Fissette there was talk of her going back to Carril or Thomas Hogstedt. Michael Joyce just seems to produce groans all round.

On another issue Nick Faldo changed his golf swing in 1983 before he had his major successes. The player who won 3 majors in 2007 and 2008 and then tinkered with his swing was the Irishman Padraig Harrington. He has never been as successful since then.

-- Edited by ROSAMUND on Saturday 7th of April 2018 01:46:31 PM

Michael D · All-time great

ROSAMUND wrote:
Although it was never confirmed but I have read it a couple of times the reason why Johanna Konta split with Esteban Carril was his request for a pay rise. When Jo split with Wim Fissette there was talk of her going back to Carril or Thomas Hogstedt. Michael Joyce just seems to produce groans all round.
On another issue Nick Faldo changed his golf swing in 1983 before he had his major successes. The player who won 3 majors in 2007 and 2008 and then tinkered with his swing was the Irishman Padraig Harrington. He has never been as successful since then.
-- Edited by ROSAMUND on Saturday 7th of April 2018 01:46:31 PM

Hello Rosamund and welcome to the forum! Yes, I had been going to mention Padraig Harrington too, who is the case I do remember, especially as he started tinkering just after he had done something like win 2 of the last 3 majors. It did seem absolutely crazy at the time, and ever after he was just a shadow of his former self. Nick Faldo I was hazier about the details

Re Jo, I've not heard this account before, that it was a pay rise that triggered the split, but considering Jo had just had her most successful season ever, and if Carril's pay was not performance linked, then I don't blame him at all. At this point, all I can say is I hope Jo's next move comes soon, certainly preferably before the grass court season.

the addict · Tennis legend

Welcome Rosamund

SF: Heather WATSON/Mihaela BUZARNESCU (GBR/ROU) lost to (3) Andreja KLEPAC/Maria Jose MARTINEZ SANCHEZ (SLO/ESP) 4-6 0-6 cry

Started well, 2-0 up, but it then slipped away, despite a lot of games going to the deciding point. Still pretty good for a sratch pair against an experienced couple.

blob · All-time great

Welcome ROSAMUND

The split with Carril had rumours about mooney & schedule - Carril often didn't travel, and it was Garcia that actually did more of the coaching in far flung corners - like at her first WTA title in Stanford, where he carried the load.
Fissette stated that they had effectively used each other up, each having disseminated and absorbed everything they could to and from the other. The fall in form must have strained the trust, or at least you'd suspect so.

With Faldo, I mentioned that he had remodelled his swing perviously, and that was referring to what he did prior to winning that excrutiatingly boring Open at Muirfield with the 18 consecutive par final round. He then became the best golfer in the world with that reassembled swing, won his Masters, more Opens. But then, he took it apart again, searching for more, ostensibly trying to add a US Open title, and it's this second deconstruction from which he never recovered.
Harrington is a good analogue, too, and David Duval.
That is why I find it similar to Jo. She already took her game apart to some extent compare to how she played circa 2010-2012, and it worked. The FH in particular kept it's power but found an improved radar. The movement up the court improved, and all of the little mannerisms we now associate with her were built in to her routine to make oit all a process, and a repeatable modular system.
That's changed since about the Fall of last year. Her FH has changed again, it has a more elaborate and pronounced follow through, and flick finish than it did in its sublime prime - when Venus and Jo were trading shots knocking each other back causing the crowd to gasp in delight and admiration at the ferocity and intensity of the hitting. She now keep ssetting up points to include a drop shot - she is not regularly proficient at drop shots, and they sit up and get dispatched with Jo stranded at net. Other little things. She's seemed to forget how the pieces all fit together, just as emma painted it.