Indian Wells Masters champion Taylor Fritz thinks the ATP introducing off-court coaching is “dumb” and that the new rule takes away the beauty of the game. Since last month, off-court coaching has been allowed on the ATP Tour.
Coaches sitting in designated seats are allowed to give players verbal and non-verbal coaching. Fritz reveals he hasn’t been using off-court coaching as he feels one of the beauties of tennis is players figuring out on their own what to do in pressure moments.
“I haven’t talked to Mike [Russell, Fritz’s coach] and he hasn’t talked to me one time since the coaching has become a thing. It’s a dumb rule. Tennis is an individual sport. Why are we making it not an individual sport? A huge part of tennis is, in my mind, like as tennis is as much mental as it is physical, and a big part of it is you need to be figuring it out on the court for yourself.
You need to be the one figuring it out. I think it’s ridiculous that you can be mentally not there, not good analytically, not good at kind of working through things and coming up with strategies, and you can have someone tell you what to do.
I hate it,” Fritz said, per Eurosport.
Fritz, Nick Kyrgios don’t like off-court coaching
When the ATP announced the introduction of off-court coaching trial, coach Patrick Mouratoglou sent out a tweet. “Congratulations to the ATP for ‘legalizing’ a practice that has been going on at almost every match for decades.
No more hypocrisy,” Mouratoglou said. Kyrgios, the 2022 Wimbledon runner-up, made it clear that he wasn’t a fan of the new rule. “Completely disagree,” Kyrgios wrote in a response to Mouratoglou’s tweet.
“Loses one of the only unique traits that no other sport had. The player had to figure out things on his own. That was the beauty of it. What happens if a high profile player versus a low ranked player who doesn’t have or afford a coach?”
