Karolina Pliskova acknowledged that there are indeed “many relationships” between players and coaches on the WTA Tour. Fiona Ferro, a French tennis player, accused her ex-coach Pierre Bouteyre of rape and se*ual assault.
Ferro alleges that the she was assaulted between 2012 and 2015, aged from 15 to 18. Following her US Open third round victory, Victoria Azarenka offered empathy for Ferro and called for the WTA to react and try to find ways to protect players from manipulative and exploitative coaches.
After Pliskova defeated Belinda Bencic in the US Open third round, she was asked to give her thoughts on Azarenka’s comments. Pliskova admitted she doesn’t really see how the WTA can intervene and help in those situations.
Pliskova on Azarenka’s comments
“I didn’t hear any story about Fiona Ferro, so I don’t know what is going on. I don’t know. Yeah, okay. I don’t think there is a problem in this. I don’t think the tour can actually do something about this.
I think it’s about the players,” Pliskova said. “Of course, some of them, they are super young. They maybe don’t have many choices. But they still have parents. I think they have enough people around themselves to somehow handle this situation,” explained.
“I think what the tour can do, they cannot just go, like, inside. This is like a team thing, this is almost like a family. They cannot just go there and say, ‘Okay, you are too much.’ I don’t think there is a way.
I don’t think somebody should, like, speak in it. But maybe of course to have somebody who can help in case you feel like you just need to speak about some things. I think actually there is at every tournament I think now some, like, mental coach or somebody.
I think there is. But I think this was always like here. And of course some of the coaches, maybe they take it little bit more seriously. I don’t know. There is many relationships also between players and coaches. It’s like that.
Actually I don’t know what I think about this. Sorry.”
Asked Karolina Pliskova what her view was on Axarenka’s comments about manipulative/exploitative coaches. She feels it’s not something the tour can intervene in, but she also admitted that there are a lot of relationships pic.twitter.com/td6TeJLHTd — Simon Briggs (@simonrbriggs) September 4, 2022
Pliskova and Azarenka will be clashing against each other in the US Open round-of-16.
