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.

CHARLESTON, SC, USA – If Caroline Wozniacki scores just one more victory at the Volvo Car Open and defeats World No.66 Jelena Ostapenko, she’ll be rewarded with more than just a spot in the Charleston semifinals: she’ll be projected to break back into the Top 10 when the new WTA rankings come out, a happy ending to what has been an absolute rollercoaster last few years.

Wozniacki got her first taste of the Top 10 back in 2009, and has been a mainstay at the top of the rankings for the majority of her career – including a stint at World No.1, a ranking she held for 67 weeks.

In fact, from 2009 to 2014 she finished each year inside the Top 10, and her six year run had been the WTA’s longest active streak.  

But a struggle with injuries and recovery derailed the Dane’s progress, causing her ranking to plummet to as low as No.74 during the 2016 US Open.

It was during that US Open fortnight that Wozniacki’s comeback came together; she entered the tournament unseeded and went on to reach the semifinals, knocking out the likes of Svetlana Kuznetsova and Madison Keys along the way.

Once she got going, Wozniacki never looked back, and in the 14 events since her ranking dipped to No.74, she’s put together a stunning run which includes titles at the 2016 Toray Pan Pacific Open and the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open, runner-up finishes at the 2017 Qatar Total Open, Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships and Miami Open, and a semifinal finish at the US Open.

She’s reached the quarterfinals or better at 11 of her last 14 events and now, by virtue of her incredible consistency, Wozniacki sits one win away from a return to her beloved Top 10 – the first time she’ll be there since September 21, 2015.

It won’t be easy with Latvian teenager Ostapenko standing in her way; Wozniacki lost in straight sets the only previous match they’ve played at last year’s Connecticut Open. And due to extreme weather conditions in Charleston, Wozniacki found herself having to double up and play two matches on the same day to reach the quarterfinals.

“I think I’m well-prepared for tomorrow,” Wozniacki said after her win against Anastasia Rodionova. “I got some clay tennis in today and feel like I’m just going to go out there and have fun and do my best and see how it goes.

“I’m just playing right now. I had one practice session before the tournament started for me, and that was it. I just kind of run on experience and try and figure it out.”

CHARLESTON, SC, USA – 19-year-old Jelena Ostapenko stunned No.11 seed Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in three sets to reach the final at the Volvo Car Open, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4.

With the victory Ostapenko is through to her third career final – and her first on clay – where he’ll face fellow-19-year-old Daria Kasatkina.

“It’s really nice to be in the third final, but first final on clay court, and especially here in Charleston,” Ostapenko told press after the match. “I’m really looking forward for tomorrow’s match.

“[Daria] kind of defensive player, and I think clay is her favorite surface, but I’m just going to try to stay consistent and be aggressive at the same time and just play my game.”

We're going three!

Mirjana Lucic-Baroni battles back to force a decider over Ostapenko 3-6, 7-5! #VolvoCarOpen pic.twitter.com/2g3oMKIpc5

— WTA (@WTA) 8 de abril de 2017

Just one point made the difference between Ostapenko and Lucic-Baroni during the tense, two-hour-and-seven-minute encounter. The Latvian employed her aggressive, fearless tennis against Lucic-Baroni, changing the direction in the ball and keeping her opponent on the run with her heavy groundstrokes.

Ostapenko was serving for the match at 5-4 in the second, but Lucic-Baroni had other ideas and the Croat put together a mammoth struggle to deny Ostapenko and break her serve.

Jelena Ostapenko edges Lucic-Baroni 6-3, 5-7, 6-4!

Sets All-Teen @VolvoCarOpen Final vs @DKasatkina! #VolvoCarOpen pic.twitter.com/ugpZVK2IAh

— WTA (@WTA) 8 de abril de 2017

She unleashed a barrage of winners against the Latvian, who had no response as Lucic-Baroni grabbed the next two games to take the match into a decider. But Ostapenko tamped down her nerves in the third and found her calm to make her way into her first final of 2017.

“I actually was quite emotional in the second set when I was 5-3 up and I couldn’t finish the set, but she liked when I was emotional,” Ostapenko admitted. “It kind of gave her confidence till then.

“In the third set I was just trying to be calm because I think it was tougher for her because I didn’t show any emotions, and it helped me, so I won the third set.”

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.