By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday April 8, 2022
With Serena Williams out of action for the last eight months, coach Patrick Mouratoglou found himself missing his calling in a big way. The Frenchman, who has guided Serena through many triumphs in the second half off her career - ten Grand Slam singles titles if you’re scoring at home - was eager to reconnect with the profession.
He is doing that now, after signing on to coach two-time major champion and former World No.1 Simona Halep, and he would not have done it without Serena’s permission. When the possibility to coach the Romanian arose, Mouratoglou got on a plane to visit Serena. The 23-time major champion told him he was free to work with Halep, at least in the short-term.
“When Simona was in Indian Wells, I decided to go see Serena to discuss the situation and see what was her own situation and what could be mine, if she was still counting on me or not, did she know exactly when she would restart playing, you know, all those things,” he told Tennis Majors in an interview. “So I went there to the US only to speak to her, which I did. And after this discussion, I knew that at least short-term I could start working as a coach with somebody else.”
Moratoglou says he has instantly clicked with Halep. He praised her legacy, her intelligence, and her work ethic, saying that he feels the possibilities are limitless for the 30-year-old.
“I love to watch her play tennis because it’s such great tennis, she has a very complete game. She can do a lot of things,” he said. “She’s great in defence, she’s great in offense. I don’t see any limit there. And I love working with her because even though we’re not working for a long time yet, what I’ve seen so far is great. Her work ethic is incredible. From the first second she’s on the court, the focus is just total focus, from the first ball to the last one, which is quite rare.”
Mouratoglou says there is plenty that Halep can improve at the moment, but he denied to get into those specifics.
“I think she has achieved a lot already. She has been No 1, she has won Grand Slams, so she’s part of the very, very, very few players who have been able to achieve incredible things. So she’s a champion, but I also feel that she has a big margin for improvement in many aspects, and she’s still very hungry. She feels like she can give more to tennis and she wants to see how far she can go. And I believe she can go very far, so that’s the idea.”