By Chris Oddo | Wednesday March 14, 2018
Borna Coric has a new team and a new lease on life--and it is paying off this week at Indian Wells.
Photo Source: Matthew Stockman/Getty
Unhappy after what he considered to be a few stagnant seasons, Borna Coric flipped the script and hired a new team last autumn. Then he headed into the offseason with one thing in mind: putting in the hardest of years.
So far, so good.
Coric reached his third career Masters 1000 quarterfinal on Wednesday with a 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-4 victory over Taylor Fritz to set up a clash with either Kevin Anderson or Pablo Carreno Busta in the last eight at Indian Wells.
Coric is now working with Riccardo Piatti and Kristijan Schneider, and has added Roger Federer’s coach Ivan Ljubicic as his manager.
“Ivan kind of watches everything from a different angle and from time to time gives a different opinion and checks I’m on the right path,” Coric told ATPWorldTour.com. “We see each other very often when I’m in Monte Carlo.”
The Croatian topped out in the rankings at No.33 in the world as an 18-year-old, and says that the experience of getting so high so early in his career was not beneficial to him.
“When I was 18 I was No.33 [in the world] and my tennis was not there yet, so it was not beneficial for me, but hopefully now I’m a little bit more clever than before so now I can focus on the right things,” he told Nick McCarvel during a live Periscope interview in the BNP Paribas Open press room.
Coric said that he felt he had to make the changes because he wanted to get some fresh eyes on his game to help him understand what he could to improve.
“I felt that I’ve been in the same place for the last two, three years and I was not happy with that place obviously so I just felt like I needed a big change, I need different view to the tennis, to my approach, and I changed a lot, and it’s been going very well,” he told Justin Gimelstob of Tennis Channel after Wednesday’s win. “I had a great couple of weeks starting from November 25th up to Doha—I had a great five weeks of training. Then after Australia I had a great week and a half so I think now it’s paying off.”
As for the changes, Coric said he’s made alterations to pretty much every element of his game.
“I changed pretty much every part of my game, I’m a little bit closer to the line so yeah, I think it’s definitely helping me now.”
The hard work and willingness to explore a new approach appears to be paying off. Coric improves to 10-3 on the season. Last year he came out of Indian Wells with just three wins on the season. A lot of that was due to an offseason knee surgery, and the Croatian No.2 still managed to win 30 wins on the season last year, improving as he went.
But this year, with a new team, could be the season that Coric finally makes his move into the Top 20. At No.49 in the world he’s got lots of work to do, but that doesn’t intimidate him one bit.
“There is no magic light,” he told the ATP this week. “OK, I’m playing well here but it doesn’t mean I’m going to be Top 10 in a few months,” he said. “We need to work in three, four years to become a Top 10 tennis player, that’s my goal.”