Patrick Mouratoglou: “Serena and I have a fight over her weight”|Tennis

pAtrick Mouratoglou clearly missed this year’s U.S. Open. Since his breakthrough consultation with Marcos Baghdatis, who guided him to the Australian Open final in 2006, Mouratoglou made himself famous as a tennis master – the merits and prospects made him pilgrimage to the French Riviera. But this is him Serena Williamswon 10 of her 23 Grand Slam singles championships back Pairing with the French, this helps Cement Mouratoglou to excel as a coach.

Currently among the tour clients, Mouratoglou caught up with me at the end of the U.S. Open, talking about Naomi’s recovery, Williams’ weight loss and breaking the two-light picture of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in the men’s game.

Why is the partnership with Serena so successful? What did you two be able to take each other away to make her already incredible tennis reach its highest level ever?

Both parties trust very much – really, Full believe. We feed each other on motivation. I [knew] She is perfect, how to push her, motivate her, motivate her, and motivate her to be more competitive. We started in difficult times. She hasn’t won a Grand Slam in two years and has suffered first-round losses for the first time in her career [to Virginie Razzano at the 2012 French Open]. When something like this happens, even the best competitors, they start to make a difference – when they compete, it hurts their quality.

Roland Garros was her hardest match, and by then she had only won once in 2002. [At the start of] In 2013, after we restored her to No. 1 in the world, she told me: “I really want to win again. Can you make plans for me?” So we did something that sounded a little crazy. Entering Madrid, we made adjustments to Roland Garros and I told her: “If you want to win this game, you have to do it with just second place because I don’t want you to get any free points.” This forced her to work every bit from the first to the last game and gave her great confidence to play on clay [Williams posted a 28-0 clay court record that year]. These are the types of challenges Serena will love because she has indeed won a lot of wins.

Recently, Serena has been in the US media blitz Weight loss pills and was criticized for undermining her athletic achievements, not to mention the advantages of diet and exercise. In an interview, she said you Her efforts to her weight led her to decide to take a medical approach to weight loss. How do you remember?

Oh, I remember Very Excellent. After pregnancy – not Correct After; I know these things take time. I told her, “Listen, this is not a comment about how you look. It’s not my problem.” But tennis is a sport you can’t be overweight. First, your joint stress and everything is so high that your chances are getting higher. The second thing is the sport, you’re constantly changing directions at a lot of speeds. Even one kilogram is a lot of overweight. The time you lose really matters when you go full speed in an extra kilogram and then need to stop and come back. Just look at the best players in the world – Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic. Think about their exercise. Weight affected her exercise.

As far as Serena is concerned, she is older – so of course, the body won’t rebound as it used to be, and the risk of injury is greater. We have fought for this several times. I remember she didn’t like me saying that because she thought I was judging her. But I kept telling her that I don’t care about your appearance. This is not my job. My job is your tennis. If you want to go back to the top and make history, then we have to be very effective at every level – including this level, which is a key element for me.

So now she’s losing all this weight, do you like it, did I wish she did these five and six years ago?

I’m not the kind of person who turns back and regrets. But yes, if she was physically in this position, the outcome would be better.

The Sinner and Alcaraz look different from the other men’s tours. If you coach a person on the floor below, how do you convince them that they can actually beat Alcaraz or Sinner in the Grand Slam final?

It’s interesting to say that. When Rafa and Roger are at the top of the game, the situation is exactly the same – [next] Eight players said it was impossible to win a Grand Slam with these two guys. When you talk about the top 10 French players – Gaël Monfils, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Richard Gasquet – they are all saying that. But then a young Novak Djokovic came in and said, “I’m going to beat those guys, it’s number 1.” Everyone laughed and said, “Who is this arrogant guy?” But he finally did it and became the greatest ever.

So yes, for the moment, Alcaraz and the Sinner are sure to be on another planet. However, your question makes sense because if anything, the guy who would confuse with these two is the only one who would believe it is possible. Actually, when I interview young players, that’s what I’m going to figure out. When you listen to them, they all say, “I want to be number one in the world.” But my first question is always: What is your plan? I need to know: How much do you believe?

I remember when I first came to my college when I was 10, when I interviewed Coco Gauff, my office thought her driving and self-confidence was incredible for someone so young. And you’ll see where she is now.

When it comes to talented players, the tennis world has high hopes for your coaching partnership with Naomi Osaka. Why ended in 10 months?

The result is not good enough, which makes perfect sense. I think we did a lot of good things, but at least from a coach’s point of view, one thing you don’t master can ruin the whole thing. I think she has made great progress and I see it every day. Her mindset is great. But she wasn’t doing well in the game, so that was part of a spoiling the whole thing.

Looking back, I didn’t do well enough or else the result would be there. I also think that as a coach, what I did for years Serena, has made me a little heavy on her. She actually mentioned several times, even publicly – I haven’t found a way to remove this stress. I think maybe that’s why she didn’t perform. Once I wasn’t in the loop, she felt lighter. By no pressure, she can express herself more freely. But there is no sad feeling. She is a great competitor.

She may not have won the third U.S. Open, but she does take pride in what she does. How do you view her game and prospects?

First, you have to talk about what Naomi has done in the last two matches. She was also in the final in Montreal, which was a very close game and could have gone. I think she’s back to the very high level of competition and has been very clear in her past two competitions. This is good news. I wasn’t surprised at all because I knew how much effort she had put in. When we broke up, I told her agent she was 100% ready – I think it was because her practice level was consistent and very high. She needed these breakthroughs, and it was very quickly before she could realize that she could play against the best and beat them. For women’s tennis, it’s amazing to reintegrate Naomi into it. She is one of the most iconic players of the past five years.