Tennis News

PARIS, France – On a special Dropshot edition of the podcast, top tennis coach and commentator Darren Cahill joins the team at Radio Roland Garros to discuss why he chose to team up with Simona Halep, what his time in Romania has been like, and he expands on his coaching philosophy.

As Cahill says, he coaches Simona because he wants to, not because he has to. “I don’t have to do this,” he says. “I’m very lucky. I’ve worked with many great players, like Hewitt and Agassi. I want to do it. I think the world of her, I think she’s a great person, I think she’s a wonderful talent. I’m away from my family 25-30 weeks a year. Some people see it as a sacrifice. I look at it as a choice.”

More from Cahill: “I think a coach has to do their job and sometimes that is delivering a tough message. I haven’t always delivered the positive message to Simona, there have been times like in Rome, I delivered a couple of tough messages to her. They were not taken in a positive way straight way, but in time you go back on them and you talk about those discussions and you try and learn from them.

“And a coach is not always right either. Part of a coach’s job is to try and coach through the player’s eyes. I look at tennis a certain way and there are certain things that happen on the court and I don’t understand why they’re happening. So I have to sit down and ask questions to the player as to why they’re making certain decisions in those moment and quite often I’m wrong because the player doesn’t see tennis the way I do. So a good coach I think learns to coach a player through their eyes.”

Tune in to Radio Roland Garros for more interview and commentary from the French Open.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or on any podcast app of your choice and reviews are always helpful, so if you like what you’ve heard so far, leave us one. You can also get new episode alerts by following us on Twitter @WTA_Insider.

Twenty-seven years on from her major breakthrough, the Barcelona Bumblebee Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario has not lost her love of the game, signing up as the latest ambassador for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.

However, for many the Spaniard will forever be the effervescent 17-year-old who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against the then-queen bee Steffi Graf in the 1989 French Open final.

This was one of many enduring memories to have occurred at a tournament that has become synonymous for first thrusting iconic names into the public eye. And as Roland Garros 2016 enters the home stretch, CNN Open Court asked some of the famous old venues’ most fêted competitors to share their memories.

Who is the most famous athlete in the world? Ben Alamar, ESPN’s director of sports analytics, devised a formula that combines salary, prize money and endorsements with social media following and Google search popularity to create the ESPN World Fame 100 rankings.

The WTA’s brightest stars dominated the list: of the 8 women highlighted by ESPN, half are WTA players. Maria Sharapova (No.18), Serena Williams (No.25), Sania Mirza (No.41) and Venus Williams (No.74) were named as the most famous female athletes.

At No.18 on the list, Sharapova is the most famous female athlete in the world and her combined 17.6 million fans on social media can agree. From winning her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon at the age of 17 to debuting her confectionary lines, the Russian’s broad popularity has cemented her position at the top.

Two “Serena Slams” 13 years apart speak to the longevity of Serena’s career, during which she’s amassed 70 titles and claims a combined 10.4 million social fans. Her off court activities – including a couple of viral cameos – keep her firmly in the pop culture spotlight as well. At No.25 she is the third most famous female athlete on the list.

A pair of trailblazers round out the ESPN World Fame 100 list: Sania Mirza and Venus Williams. Mirza galvanized an entire subcontinent when she became the first Indian woman to win a Grand Slam last year at Wimbledon, and the world’s No.1 doubles player continues to break barriers for women. Similarly, Venus made history when she became the first African-American player ever – male or female – to hold the No.1 ranking in tennis. Her 49 career titles are only eclipsed by her continuing contributions to equality in the game, and as a result she remains one of the most famous athletes in the world.

MELBOURNE, Australia – CoCo Vandeweghe played impeccable tennis to continue a career-best run, dispatching No.7 seed Garbiñe Muguruza, 6-4, 6-0 to reach the Australian Open semifinals.

“It’s amazing to be in a semifinal,” she said in her post-match press conference. “But, you know, not satisfying. I want to keep going, keep playing. There’s more things to do out on a tennis court that I’m hoping to achieve.”

Vandeweghe might have been forgiven for having a letdown less than 48 hours after defeating World No.1 and defending champion Angelique Kerber in the previous round.

But with the help of coach Craig Kardon, it was clear the unseeded American came to play from the outset, earning break points in the very first game against Muguruza, who was playing in her first major quarterfinal since winning Roland Garros.

“I thought I took care of the things that I could control, which is the most important thing: not letting outside factors affect anything that was happening.

“It’s kind of weathering the storm a little bit, knowing what Craig and I talked about before the match: the game plan is going to work, and believing in it, not wavering from it, which I’m very proud of myself for doing, especially early in the first set when I was kind of squandering quite a few break points.”

The first set came down to one break of serve, which Vandeweghe converted and never looked back, losing just one more game in one hour and 23 minute masterclass.

“Maybe I play better nervous and scared. I don’t know. I think I don’t shy away from a challenge necessarily. I never have. Growing up, I’ve always just been wanting to prove people wrong in a lot of different regards.

“I think it’s more that I take it as an enjoyable challenge. It’s what I want to do. It’s where I want to be. To face the best players is definitely an accomplishment, to say for myself that I’ve gotten to the point that I’ve beat and face these top players.”

By the end of the match, she hit 31 winners to 20 unforced errors, handcuffing the typically aggressive Muguruza, holding the Spaniard to only 14 winners against 16 errors.

“I was surprised,” Muguruza said after the match. “I think she played unbelievable. Three times we played in the past, she didn’t show this level.

“Her serve, her shots were there. She barely missed. So it was a pretty good performance from her.”

Standing between Vandeweghe and her first Grand Slam final is No.13 seed and former No.1 Venus Williams, who is playing her first Australian Open semifinal since 2003.

“It’s a dream to play someone you grew up watching. To play an unbelievable player, future Hall of Famer in Venus, and to be on the court with her, I’ve only experienced it one time before.

“But to do it at this stage of a Grand Slam is kind of crazy. I mean, I can’t really put it into words. Not only when I was younger, it was unknown if I even wanted to play tennis, because I was playing basketball as well, but it was kind of, like, you see that, you see it happening, but you more see yourself there. You don’t see who the opponent is on the other side when you get there.

“To definitely have two Americans against each other in the semifinal I think is pretty cool.”

.@CoCoVandey reflects on her game… “It was like a freight train, you couldn't stop it.” #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/CMzpFOK5H1

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 24, 2017