In Christopher Clarey’s informative New York Times article about the termination Victoria Azarenka and Sam Sumyk’s professional relationship, the current world No. 50 expressed some sadness about losing a coach that she also considered a friend and mentor.

Read Clarey’s Full Article Here

“I never will forget what we achieved together and always will be grateful, but yeah, it was a bit surprising for me,” Azarenka told Clarey. “To me, it’s just sad. There’s no other emotion. There’s no anger. There’s no anything else but just sadness, because it’s like a breakup in a way.”

Azarenka has since moved on, hiring Wim Fissette, the former coach of Kim Clijsters and Simona Halep to help her get back to the top of the sport. But she will continue to work with Sumyk’s wife, Meilen Tu, who has been her agent for some time now. Azarenka said that things might have been different if she had parted ways on bad terms with Sumyk.

“I think it’s their business to kind of block it out, business and family,” she said of Tu and Sumyk. “But if we would have ended things with Sam in a bad way, I think it would have been weird. But I feel we ended it on good terms. I mean it’s difficult to call it good, because it feels sad. But in a way, it was a good ending, so there’s no weirdness.”

Sumyk has since been hired by Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard, and Bouchard and Azarenka are sure to cross paths on court in the not-too-distant future, but Azarenka says that’s for the public and the media to worry about. To her there is no bad blood and it’s not a big deal.

“In terms of like their situation, I will never comment on that; really it’s none of my business,” she told Clarey of Sumyk and Bouchard. “I’m sure we are going to meet again on the court, and there’s going to be a lot of buzz: ‘Oh my God, blah, blah, blah.’ But I really don’t care about that. I really try to stick to what I’ve got to do and to be focused on my next step, my team.”

Azarenka will join a cast of seven top ten players at next week’s Qatar Total Open in Doha.