When Denis Shapovalov first picked up a racquet at age five, it was because he wanted to be like his older brother. The #NextGenATP Candian now hopes to provide that same inspiration for kids in his country.

The 20-year-old currently sits at No. 16 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, just three spots away from the career-high standing that he achieved in January. But while Shapovalov takes pride in his on-court accomplishments, he’s equally proud of achieving them on his own terms. His home-grown success has served as a template for other Canadians that they don’t need to relocate in order to pursue their dreams of a professional tennis career.

“I want to use my game to inspire more kids that are going their own way, that aren’t supported, and show that it’s possible to do it on your own if you truly believe and work hard,” Shapovalov said to ATP Uncovered presented by Peugeot. “Hopefully it can inspire the young generation of Canada to pick up racquets and believe that they can become tennis players [while] living and training in Canada.”

Tennis runs in Shapovalov’s family. His mother, Tessa, competed on the Russian national tennis team and played professionally during the 1990s. She went on to become a coach at the Richmond Hill Country Club in Toronto and coached his older brother, Evgeniy. The younger Shapovalov would tag along for training sessions and eventually made his way onto the court.

”When he was working with my mom, I would try to run on court [and] disturb, try to hit the balls. For the first bit of time, it was fine because I was swinging and missing,” Shapovalov said. “Soon after, I started to disturb the practice too much and my mom said it was time to start [playing] if I wanted.”

Shapovalov’s love for the sport was immediate and his family was willing to do whatever it took to nurture his talent. When it became difficult for him to get adequate court time at Richmond Hill, Tessa left her job there to open her own tennis academy.

The bold move paid off. Shapovalov won his first ITF Junior title at age 14 and, three years later, lifted the boys’ singles trophy at 2016 Wimbledon. He would pick up his first ATP Tour win just weeks later by ousting Nick Kyrgios in front of friends and family in Toronto.

But Shapovalov acknowledged that his results didn’t come without enormous sacrifices. While his friends would hang out after school, his world was consumed by training. The cost of traveling to elite junior events also put a financial strain on his family.

”Growing up, I wasn’t a normal kid,” he said. “I remember waking up at 5:00 or 6:00am to practise before school, training at 10:00 or 11:00pm, trying to get better, improving something, crying on the court and just putting in everything I had.

”My parents and my team put in so much effort because we came from our own way. We didn’t get any support so we had to put in all the effort, all the money, everything, We were questioning what we should do because we got to a certain point where I was traveling and we couldn’t afford to go to more tournaments. But I always believed in myself and my family believed in me.”

That unwavering belief and willingness to take risks has been evident as he’s made his rapid climb up the rankings. After enduring a string of early exits in the middle of last season, Shapovalov started working with former World No. 8 Mikhail Youzhny in mid-August. He made small tweaks to his game at Youzhny’s urging, such as incorporating backhand slices into his game to get more returns into play, and saw immediate results from it.

Read More: Shapovalov On His Surge: ‘I Knew It Was Just A Question Of Time’

Shapovalov finished the year on a 21-10 run that included his maiden ATP Tour title in Stockholm (d. Krajinovic) and first ATP Masters 1000 final in Paris (l. to Djokovic). He then opened this season with a pair of Top 10 wins against Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev while leading Team Canada at the inaugural ATP Cup.

After enduring plenty of stressful moments around tennis, Shapovalov is now playing without pressure. Being able to swing freely has played a key role in his rapid climb up the rankings and will only yield more strong results in the future.

”When I wake up, my only purpose is to get better and improve something. I’m trying to grow as a player and a person. I want to enjoy where I am in my career,” Shapovalov said. “I don’t have to worry about finances anymore or what I’m going to do if I don’t win this match. Just have fun out there and show the world my game.”

There are few players like Benoit Paire on the ATP Tour. From forward-facing half-volley tweeners as he rushes the net to drop volleys with incredible touch, the Frenchman has talent oozing from his pores.

“That’s why I play tennis: to have fun on court, to enjoy, to try some hot shots,” Paire told ATP Uncovered presented by Peugeot.

Watch Incredible Paire Drop Volley:

Entering last season, he owned only one ATP Tour trophy and a 47.7 career tour-level winning percentage (180-197). But the Frenchman enjoyed one of the best years of his career in 2019, triumphing in Marrakech and Lyon.

“It was a long season, very good for me, two titles. Since this tournament in Marrakech with confidence, with everything, we were able to make a good season,” Paire said. “Then a new title in Lyon, so honestly for me it was a very good season.”

Paire’s peers respect the Frenchman’s abilities. Not only does he have sensational feel, but a lethal two-handed backhand. Those weapons helped him climb as high as No. 18 in the FedEx ATP Rankings in 2016. He is currently World No. 22.

“I think he’s great. He’s even better than he thinks he is,” said Gael Monfils, Paire’s countryman. “I think last year, to get back in great shape and win a lot of matches and actually two titles, I think it was a great achievement.”

Paire’s journey goes back to when he began playing tennis at six. His father used to work at a club next to their home. At that time, professional tennis was far away.

“I watched tennis on TV growing up, and I thought it would be incredible just to one day play one match at this level,” Paire told ATPTour.com after winning his first ATP Tour trophy at 2015 Bastad.

That came after one of the most devastating blows of Paire’s career. On 17 September 2014, he underwent left knee surgery and missed the rest of the season. In his second tournament back the following January, he dropped down to the Futures level.

Knowing the difficulties of dealing with an injury, Paire put his tennis in perspective.

“It’s very important to enjoy when everything is fine on court. It’s never easy to play tennis for four, five years in a row,” Paire said. “After my surgery, in 2015, I had to work a lot to think about what to do to enjoy more on court, to be more calm, and that’s what I did.”

When Paire won that first title, it only ignited his hunger.

“It’s good to win one tournament,” Paire said at the time. “But I want to win more and make more finals.”

Paire has won two titles and reached three finals since. While his shot selection — choosing a tweener half-volley rather than a conventional one — might sometimes seem misguided, it’s that fun nature of the Frenchman’s game that helps him play his best and endears him to fans.

“Sometimes it’s working, sometimes it’s not,” Paire said. “But I will try more for 2020.”

The 30-year-old, who made this year’s Auckland final, is playing some of his best tennis ever. When he’s at his top level, Paire is as entertaining as anyone.

“Benoit brings a lot to the game. He’s talented. He has a personality, and we need it,” said former World No. 8 Sebastien Grosjean. “As a player, he has a strong personality. I think he’s great.”

The ATP has announced a six-week suspension of the men’s professional tennis tour due to escalating health and safety issues arising from the global outbreak of COVID-19. The suspension means all ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour events scheduled up to and inclusive of the week of April 20 will not take place.

Following the recent cancellation of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, the affected ATP Tour events are the Miami Open presented by Itau, the Fayez Sarofim & Co U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships in Houston, the Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech, the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, and the Hungarian Open in Budapest.

The six-week suspension comes in the wake of the World Health Organization’s declaration on Wednesday that COVID-19 constitutes a global pandemic and the 30-day travel restriction announced by the United States for foreign nationals from 26 European countries. The suspension follows numerous local government orders on restrictions, bans or cancellations of public gatherings or events. The ATP has been closely monitoring the rapidly evolving situation related to COVID-19, taking advice from medical experts and travel advisors and consulting with all local regulatory authorities, and will continuously review the feasibility of subsequent events in the calendar.

Andrea Gaudenzi, ATP Chairman, said: “This is not a decision that was taken lightly and it represents a great loss for our tournaments, players, and fans worldwide. However we believe this is the responsible action needed at this time in order to protect the health and safety of our players, staff, the wider tennis community and general public health in the face of this global pandemic. The worldwide nature of our sport and the international travel required presents significant risks and challenges in today’s circumstances, as do the increasingly restrictive directives issued by local authorities. We continue to monitor this on a daily basis and we look forward to the Tour resuming when the situation improves. In the meantime, our thoughts and well-wishes are with all those that have been affected by the virus.”

The suspension of ATP events takes place with immediate effect, meaning this week’s ATP Challenger tournaments in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, and Potchefstroom, South Africa, are not able to be completed.

The ATP is carefully reviewing the broad impact of this evolving situation related to FedEx ATP Rankings points, and any decisions will be announced in due course. In addition, in full collaboration with the ITF, FedEx ATP Rankings points will not be available at any ITF World Tennis Tour events during the suspension period.

After lifting the title earlier this month in Dubai and improving to 18-0 in 2020, Novak Djokovic half-jokingly remarked that he’d like to still be undefeated at the end of the year. It might be the only way that the Serbian could top his epic 2011 season, which still remains in the conversation for the greatest individual season in the Open Era.

No less of an authority than John McEnroe, who posted an 82-3 record in 1984, deemed Djokovic’s run “the greatest year in the history of our sport.” Pete Sampras even went a step further by calling it “one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports.”

The numbers that Djokovic ended his 2011 season with are still jaw-dropping nearly a decade later. He compiled a 70-6 record and racked up 10 tour-level titles, including three Grand Slam crowns. Djokovic also became the first player to win five ATP Masters 1000 titles in a single year and remains the only player to accomplish the feat.

Djokovic’s 2011 Season Highlights
W-L Record: 70-6 (92.1%)
Titles: 10
Record vs. Top 10: 21-4 
Record vs. Federer & Nadal: 10-1 
Longest Winning Streak: 41 (January-June 2011)
Prize Money: $12,619,803 (new season record)

Djokovic started 2011 at No. 3 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, with then-World No. 1 Rafael Nadal holding nearly double the amount of points. Six months later, Djokovic clinched the No. 1 ranking for the first time after defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the Wimbledon semi-finals. He cemented the role reversal by finishing the year with a 4,000-point lead over Nadal.

FedEx ATP Rankings Points Among Big Three – Start & End Of 2011

Djokovic began the year by going on a staggering 41-0 run, only trailing John McEnroe (42-0, 1984) for the best start to a season in the Open Era. He started by lifting his second Grand Slam crown at the Australian Open, scoring dominant straight-sets wins in the semi-finals and final against Roger Federer and Andy Murray, respectively.

A title in Dubai – and another win over Federer in the championship match – soon followed, before he became the seventh man to complete the “Sunshine Double”. Djokovic posted back-to-back victories against Federer and Nadal in the semi-finals and final in Indian Wells, then outlasted Nadal in a third-set tie-break two weeks later to prevail in Miami.

The Djokovic train rolled on during the clay-court season as he completed a convincing title run on home soil in Belgrade (d. Lopez), but perhaps his most stunning accomplishment that year was still to come. The Serbian’s winless (0-9) record against Nadal on clay came to a halt with consecutive victories in the finals of Madrid and Rome. The victory in Madrid ended Nadal’s own run of 37 consecutive clay-court wins dating back to 2009.

“I came up against a great player. He’s having a monster year,” said Nadal after the Madrid final. “He was better. You have to accept that.”

Djokovic arrived at Roland Garros as the on-paper favourite for the title and he happily took on the role, cruising through the first week and receiving further help with a quarter-final walkover against Fabio Fognini. But all good things must come to an end. Federer snapped the Serbian’s winning streak by prevailing in a four-set semi-final thriller.

“These were the best months of my life, an incredible period. It had to end some time,” Djokovic reflected after the match. “Unfortunately, it came in a bad moment.”

Although the defeat was disappointing, it was hardly a knockout blow to his confidence. Djokovic immediately regrouped by ousting Nadal in the Wimbledon and US Open finals, with another Masters 1000 crown in Montreal (d. Fish) sandwiched between those triumphs. The Serbian finished the year with a stunning 10-1 combined record against Federer and Nadal, and beat the Spaniard in all six finals they contested.

Slight tweaks made to Djokovic’s game contributed to his dominance that year. A beefed-up second serve led to him winning 61 per cent of second-serve points prior to arriving in Cincinnati, compared to 52 per cent throughout the 2010 season, according to the Infosys ATP Stats Leaderboards. Greater efficiency in his second-serve return points (58% overall) contributed to him finishing 2011 as the season leader in return games won (39%).

Djokovic would love nothing more than to surpass those statistics this season. But while some fans and tennis experts may soon start comparing Djokovic’s current year to his 2011 performance, the Serbian will likely not join them in that analysis.

“I don’t like to compare years,” he admitted in 2011 Montreal. “I think every year is a different experience [and] a different challenge. You grow. You evolve as a person and a player.”

Although Djokovic is understandably a much different person and player than he was nine years ago, his 2011 numbers still remain the benchmark to beat. If he can maintain his flawless start to 2020, it’s possible he could establish a new banner season for himself.

It’s one of the ATP Challenger Tour’s crown jewels and next week the Arizona Tennis Classic will take on even greater importance in the tennis calendar.

The prestigious Challenger 125 event always attracts some of the best fields on the circuit, with players looking for additional match play between the ATP Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami. But this year, with the cancellation of the BNP Paribas Open, the tournament in Phoenix has been thrust into the spotlight.

Slated to begin Sunday, the event will feature an enhanced eight-day schedule with expanded draw sizes, increased broadcast TV coverage in the United States and a stacked field of today’s ATP stars. As the only tournament on the men’s calendar next week, all eyes will be on Phoenix.

On Wednesday, it was announced that the singles draw size would expand from 48 to 56 players and qualifying from four to eight competitors. With the goal of accommodating those affected by the cancellation of Indian Wells, the 56 main draw players will be comprised of 41 through the original entry list, six wild cards and four qualifiers. The five remaining spots will be filled from an on-site sign-in list using the most recent FedEx ATP Ranking.

The tournament will kick off on Sunday, with qualifying to be completed in addition to the start of the main draw. In the meantime, players have the opportunity to continue practising at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, while utilising the on-site facilities and services.

Top 100 stars Frances Tiafoe, Jannik Sinner, Miomir Kecmanovic, Richard Gasquet, Steve Johnson, John Millman and Gilles Simon are among those confirmed to compete in Phoenix. Wild card announcements will be forthcoming.

In addition, Tennis Channel has announced wall-to-wall broadcast TV coverage of the Arizona Tennis Classic. The U.S. network announced that its production truck would be making its way to Phoenix for 60 hours of live match coverage. It will provide unprecedented TV exposure for a Challenger in the United States. Starting on Monday at 2pm ET, the network will show seven days of live tennis, concluding with singles and doubles finals on March 22. You can also watch free first ball to last coverage via the ATP Challenger Tour live streaming platform on ATPChallengerTour.com.

Held at the historic Phoenix Country Club, the Challenger event is making its second straight appearance on the calendar following its relocation from Irving, Texas. Last year, Matteo Berrettini lifted the trophy and went on to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, finishing in the Top 10 of the year-end FedEx ATP Rankings.

Established in 1899, the Phoenix Country Club is one of just seven Challenger venues to be founded before the turn of the century. Today, the facility also hosts a PGA Tour Champions event at its 18-hole golf course.

We are not breaking serve like we used to.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of players breaking serve over the past 29 years identifies that the most recent season (2019) and the most distant (1991) in the data set sit at polar opposites in overall performance on a statistics table – and not where you would expect.

The data set includes the average of the 20 best performers each season in breaking serve from when statistics were first kept in 1991 to last season. The leading 20 players in 1991 outperformed the season leaders in each of the 28 seasons that followed, breaking serve 32.18 per cent (4,309/13,392) of the time on average.

What was the worst performing season? None other than last year, when the leading 20 players broke serve just 26.19 per cent (3,769/14,315) of the time. We have a preconceived notion that our sport is always improving, always putting up superior numbers than yesteryear, but that’s not always the case. In fact, the leading six seasons are all in the 1990s and the seven worst performing years are all from 2010 onwards.

There has only been one instance where a player has broken the 40 per cent threshold for return games won in a season. That was Rafael Nadal in 2016, where he won a staggering 40.75 per cent (216/530) of his return games. Nadal has been the season leader in return games won a record nine times, with the first coming in 2005. Nadal has been the return games won leader in the past two seasons and five of the past seven seasons.

In 2016, Nadal led the tour in breaking serve from 15/0. He won 27.13 per cent (70/258) of the games where this occurred, which was more than double the tour average of 13.49 per cent (2,891/21,435). It’s just another return metric where he understandably sits at the top of the mountain. The Spaniard has been the ultimate nemesis for the server for well over a decade.

While the leading 20 players performed better breaking serve in the 1990s than in the past decade, Nadal transcends all years and generations with his ability to consistently lead the tour in breaking serve at a rate other players simply can’t compete with.

1991-2019: Average Of The Best 20 Performers Breaking Serve

Daniil Medvedev was concerned that he wasn’t landing his first serve. Sitting in the Team Zone are the Russian’s coach Gilles Cervara and Marat Safin, the captain of Team Russia, at the inaugural ATP Cup. Italian Fabio Fognini, who has landed in Perth barely 24 hours earlier, wanting to spend more time in Barcelona following the recent birth of his daughter, Farah, is landing big shots, taking the first set 6-1. Medvedev looks over early in the second set, seeking help. Safin, who hasn’t wanted to tread on the toes of a player’s regular team, is concise and direct: “Throw it up, down the middle.” Medvedev does just that, hits an ace and returns a smile. He goes on to register his first win of the competition.

Safin is old-school, not wanting too much data to differentiate his read of the game. He told ATPTour.com in Perth, “I don’t want to interfere in some things between a player and their coach, because sometimes if I say something, it might not have the right effect. I want them to believe in themselves and to do the best they can do. It’s a very delicate matter, because everybody has his own character and own approach; how they want to be approached, and I don’t want to make any damage, that’s for sure. I will try to be careful with my words.” For Cervara, named by his peers as Coach of the Year in the 2019 ATP Awards, being alongside Safin, a former No. 1 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, was an education into how a top player viewed a match unfolding. You could tell had Safin the total respect of Medvedev and Karen Khachanov.

“It was interesting being with Safin at the ATP Cup,” Cervara told ATPTour.com. “It was not the same view as I had from my coach position, as he saw it from the fact that he was a top player. In the Strategy Room or courtside, he always asked me if he could say something to Daniil, but he was always a sounding board for advice, even though how we worded our thoughts may have be different. I haven’t had mentors from coaching, but I do admire people with personality, from other sports and life in general, the way they live their lives and understand life. Marat was never pushy, but offered a welcome, different perspective and I learned an awful lot, just as I did with my own career, which was never at this level. But I understood what was happening to me on the court and I developed to help me to transfer my knowledge, my vision, to a player.”

The 39-year-old Cervara established the Elite Tennis Center in Cannes seven years ago with Jean-Rene Lisnard, and it was after a visit — and a lot of questions — from Medvedev’s parents [Sergey and Olga] in 2015 that their son relocated to the south of France for better training facilities and to stay with his sister, Elena, who already lived there. “While it wasn’t my first coaching experience, I wasn’t well known, but we developed a good connection,” admitted Cervara. “In 2015, his main coach was supposed to go to Marseille with Daniil, but he couldn’t as he was at another tournament with another player. So it was decided that I would go with Daniil to Marseille. We did a good job together and I was careful and sensitive about his personality, so he played well and felt good about his tennis. One year later, for the grass season, we went to a few tournaments and later in 2016, attended a few more. In the off-season we said ‘goodbye’, but we felt we’d worked well together and that’s how our relationship developed.”

It wasn’t until after Medvedev, then aged 21, had beaten Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the 2017 Wimbledon first round, that Cervara started to understand how he could help. Cervara, who became the Russian’s full-time coach later that year, remembers, “It was a big victory to beat a top player like Wawrinka. It meant something. I was not working with him all the time, but he was a good player, although I could see that there was nothing consistent in his preparation. That’s what we developed, when he asked me to be his full-time coach. I had a clear vision that we needed to improve this day-after-day and built a team around Daniil to help him.”

The team of physical trainer Eric Hernandez, psychologist Francisca Dauzet and sports scientist Yann Le Meur, in addition to those who analyse data from all of Medvedev’s matches, shared in Cervara’s coaching honour, as voted for by his peers in the 2019 ATP Awards. “Eric was there from the beginning, working at the centre as a physical trainer, but I knew as a coach Daniil’s physical strength was weak and we needed to do better” said Cervara. “It was the same with the mental approach with Francisca, with Daniil accepting and realising he need to do this work. Daniil was sensitive to Yann, who I’d known before, and we worked well together to be strong physically, because recovery in sports is a small part. If you’re not well trained physically, recovery doesn’t mean anything.”

They were all essential to Medvedev’s success last season, when the Russian posted an ATP Tour-best 59 match wins, 46 hard-court victories and nine final appearances, in addition to reaching a career-high No. 4. “Did Daniil’s 2019 surprise me?” asks Cervara. “I want to say in one part, yes, because when it happens like this, it’s ‘Wow, it’s amazing!’ But at the same time when you think about the work he did, then you know it wasn’t surprising. When you think about his win over [Stan] Wawrinka at Wimbledon [in 2017], Daniil was 70 in the world. It meant he could do crazy things, so no I’m not surprised about last year. He is the pilot now, driving to improve different areas.”

The 24-year-old Medvedev has started 2020 with an 8-4 record, including four straight wins at the start of the season when he helped Russia to the ATP Cup semi-finals. Cervara doesn’t believe Medvedev is “under pressure [to defend 2019 FedEx ATP Rankings points], because he tries to do his best and win every match.” He won’t be changing anything up any time soon in their pre-match preparations. “I try to get Daniil mentally sound, the best feeling he can be,” said the French coach. “Sometimes we don’t work a lot with the ball, but we do the main things he likes to do. I try and fix one or two small things between matches in our one-hour training sessions, or work on different things if Daniil is receptive to it. Sometimes you do things that turn out to be useless, and sometimes useless things that are beneficial. It’s about feeling. I want him to feel good, putting in exercises he likes to do as it’s something we have done a lot.”

Safin, who finished his playing career in 2009, reflected on the state of Medvedev’s game at the ATP Cup, saying, “The first year, when you start and you do well, it’s a little bit easier than the second year. Because in the second year everybody starts to know you, starts to learn about you, and they try to change a tactic against you. He was a newcomer last year. So, this year, I think he’s working on a few new things to improve — it’s like a telephone. You have to upgrade each year, every time. The way that Daniil is thinking it, I think he will be dangerous this year. He’s very pumped up… Daniil is getting more and more stronger in the head. He’s a big fighter. He’s very smart, which is good. He reads the game very well. It’s easier for him to adapt to other players. He plays very good in important moments, in important matches, like we saw against Rafa [Nadal] in finals of the [2019] US Open.”

So after travelling to so many tournaments together, have player and coach become friends? “It’s tough to define what sort of relationship we have,” says Cervara. “In one way we can say friends, but it’s tough to use that word from my side. We have a very good connection, it’s not about talking, it’s sometimes just a look to convey energy and emotion. Things that worry me, don’t worry him and vice versa. I work on my coaching to develop my skills, as Daniil does with his tennis. Both are different approaches to the sport, but we have a good bond and one goal. I want him to realise his potential and have the best career he can.”

Miro Hrvatin has mentored #NextGenATP Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic for more than a decade, helping the former junior star rapidly climb the FedEx ATP Rankings. The Croatian spoke to ATPTour.com about how their relationship has developed, what Kecmanovic needs to focus on, what off-season training with stars including Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer is like, and more.

What are your biggest priorities with Miomir?
I think that this year, he’s stepping closer to the baseline. He’s more into the court, he’s much more aggressive. His serve went up [a level], and I think that’s the main thing we want to keep pushing. It is trying to play deep balls and stay close to the baseline, taking time away. That’s not a one-day job, but that’s something that we will try to make better this season.

He said that practising with top players during the off-season, he learned a lot from them about taking time away, taking the ball early to push the point a little bit. How important is that to add to his game?
I think that’s the crucial thing, because everybody knows how to play forehands and backhands. But once you take time away from them, things start to be different. We were lucky this pre-season and last pre-season we had really good pre-season camps and good players. Some of the best players in the world were there.

Practising with them, they are showing you the path where you want to go, what you have to do, and what you have to work on.

How priceless is it that he spent an off-season with Dominic, this past off-season with Novak and so forth?
I think that’s the biggest thing you can get. Last year in Tenerife with Gunter Bresnik and with Dominic Thiem and all the guys over there like David Goffin and Jan-Lennard Struff, it was perfect. And this year was even more perfect.

You had Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Karen Khachanov… you cannot buy that practice. You cannot find it anywhere else except playing with those guys. For me and for him, I think it’s one of the best things he can get.

How did he approach that? Was he simply excited?
He’s always excited when playing with Novak of course and Roger. He still didn’t hit with Nadal, but that’s something that we are working on. He likes to compete, and then once he has one of the best players on the other side, then he’s always giving his maximum. I believe that is something that raises your level. 

Is taking it early a footwork thing, getting used to the timing? What’s the key?
I think it’s a combination, plus I think it’s the player who needs to be mentally aggressive. It’s something that I think is not only one thing. Footwork is very important, but then the timing is different if you are coming closer to the ball. All together, I think it takes time to fit into place.

But that’s the thing that they’re all doing. You don’t have time while playing with the best players in the world. If you give them a short ball, you are dead. You lost the point, that’s it. Very simple.

What’s something people should know about Miomir outside of tennis?
He likes high adrenaline, that I know. He likes to jump skydiving, he’s done that. That’s something that he enjoyed a lot. I would not jump from there, not for a million dollars. He’s doing that very easy, very simple. He likes those adrenaline things, so I think that helps him playing tennis because tennis is always under pressure. So I think for him it’s easier because he’s doing that.

You’ve known Miomir for a long, long time, more than a majority of coaches work with their players. How does that add to your working relationship with him, knowing him for so long?
I’ve known him since he was eight or nine, when we had a couple of practice sessions. Then I lived in Pula, Croatia, so he came back there for the summer every year until he went to the United States. In three or four years, we started our relationship.

As long as you know somebody, I think it’s good. If you know them longer, I think it could help. For me, sometimes, if you spend too much time together, it could go the other way. But for us at the moment, it’s still a good relationship with a lot of respect. We are working hard, so it’s good.

How different is that little Miomir you met 12, 13 years ago, compared to how he is now?
Some parts of him are the same, but of course he grew up a lot and he’s much more professional now, even though at that time he was very focussed and very determined with his goals. Some things changed, some stayed the same.

What’s the biggest thing that has changed?
The process, just growing up. When you are a small kid, you compete to win. But getting older, I think winning becomes more and more important. 

When you first saw Miomir when he was a kid, if I had told you he’d be where he is now, what would you have said?
He was really young when I first saw him. But his technique was very solid. I would say he didn’t change a lot, especially the groundstrokes. Serve, yes, but the groundstrokes were very solid, even at that time. Every player and every coach dreams to be Top 10 or No. 1. You need to put a lot of work in, a lot of effort, and get a little bit of luck.

How high is his ceiling?
We go step by step. I think there are things that we have to work on and if he improves one thing by one, I think we can make some steps forward even this year. 

He was a very highly touted junior, but not every junior makes it all the way to the top of the sport, so how nice has this smooth climb been to start his pro career?
It’s a lot of working and Misha wants that, so he’s willing to work for it. He’s fighting for it. We are fighting for it together with all the team, everybody around him, with the family and everybody. I think it’s going in a good direction, luckily.

There are some coaches who have worked with many players. Miomir is your first big experience on the ATP Tour. What has that journey been like?
I enjoy it a lot and I love tennis and I love challenges. When he’s winning, of course, everybody is happy, and I’m the most happy. But sometimes if you have a bad period, the thing is challenging us, ‘Let’s see if we could do something to make it back on track.’ I love it.

What should people know about Miomir off the tennis court?
He’s all in tennis! He is very focussed on his goals and I think one of the reasons that he’s here, it’s that he’s very focussed, very determined to achieve those goals that he has in his mind.