WTA: Kontaveit trainer continues without a contract
Since Dmitry Tursunov took over the coaching role at Anett Kontaveit in August, this has hardly been stopped. The collaboration is to continue in 2022 - trust is as limitless as the recent successes.
by Ilya Portnoy
last edit:
Dec 09, 2021, 07:22 pm
Dream runs in tennis are as rare as they are fascinating. This year there were a few of them on both tours. Remember Aslan Karatsev's entry into the semi-finals at the Australian Open, which he reached from qualification. Or the winning series of Emma Raducanu and Botic van de Zandschulp at the US Open, which both started out of nowhere - for the British woman even up to the Grand Slam title without having previously won a "normal" tour match.
How to place Kontaveit's performance on this list of incredible series is difficult to say. With her tournament victories in Cleveland, Ostrava, Moscow and Cluj-Napoca, she managed to collect enough points at the last minute to jump on the plane to the WTA Finals in Guadalajara. There she reached the final, where she - as before in the group stage - only had to admit defeat to the Spaniard Garbine Muguruza. Up to the end of the season, Kontaveit had shown a remarkable consistency for weeks that hardly exists on the women's tour.
Your coach Dmitry Tursunov should certainly have a certain share in this. In a conversation with metaratings.ru , the Russian confirmed that the duo would continue to work together in the coming season. The ex-professional, however, renounces a contract: "I think, regardless of whether there will be a contract or not - it would be pointless".
Tursunov on Kontaveit: As with marriage
He does not want to urge his protégé to continue working with him just because a document regulates this. “It's like marriage. If a person no longer wants to be married, you cannot tell them that their passport has a signature and that it ends ”. Tursunov is convinced that one way or another you have to expect consequences if you as a player or coach don't keep your word. Whether he is alluding to his failed coach-player relationship with Aryna Sabalenka remains pure speculation. “I prefer to trust people. Of course, I often burn my fingers in the process, but I want to live a simpler life, ”said the 38-year-old, although he admits that some will see this as a naive, utopian attitude towards life.
"All in all, it was a great season for them," is how Tursunov sums up Kontaveit's successes. "Now our goal is to confirm this in the next season, to take the game to an even higher level," which of course would be even more difficult to achieve given our own expectations and those of the outsiders. About the lost matches at the WTA Finals against Muguruza, the coach thinks that his player could have won them. She may not have been able to cope with the pressure, but now he is curious to see whether it can increase to "show everyone that it was not a coincidence".