Daria Kasatkina has had a brutal start to 2019, losing all but one of her singles matches and dropping outside of the Top 10. Now, she’ll try to pick up the pieces without the man who helped her have so much success over the last two seasons, her coach Philippe Dehaes.
On Thursday the Russian announced on Instagram that she’d be parting with the Belgian.
“It is with sadness that I am announcing that myself and Philippe Dehaes are parting ways after a very successful partnership,” she wrote on Instagram. “Who knows what the future holds, never say never. I'd just like to go on record as saying thank you again to Philippe, you'll always mean a lot to me and I wish you the very best.”
Kasatkina will next be in action at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells where she is defending runner-up points.
Kasatkina and Dehaes developed quite a rapport during their time together, and their animated, positive on-court coaching moments garnered the pair quite a bit of attention, especially this one from Kasatkina’s emotional title run at Moscow last October.
But that enthusiasm, and the winning ways, haven’t carried over into 2019.
Just yesterday Kasatkina lost in three sets to American Sonya Kenin in Dubai. Afterwards she expressed her frustration to Reem Abulleil of Sport 360. “The start of the season completely sucks. Even worse than last year,” she told Abulleil. “But I think most players go through these periods, through these crises, so I think I just have to push myself and see this situation from the positive side.”