Coach-player separations are hardly rare in professional tennis; players go through their mentors like hot dinners, and on occasions it can seem like a desperate reaction that might not be necessary or profitable.
Dimitrov is 24, and judging from his interview following his third-round loss to Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon he clearly feels he must not sit about consoling himself with the fact that he still has time on his side. “I don’t consider myself that young any more,” said the Bulgarian.
This is a mature mindset to have, and Dimitrov is sensible to stay receptive to variations and advancements which might bring about his development, but you sometimes feel tennis players are lured into firing their coaches when encumbered by a run of poor form.
Bad form is not clever. Neither is losing, and I know – I’ve done it often enough in my professional career. The first impulse is to take it out on the coach, girlfriend, pet – whoever is nearest. I’m extremely good at making it someone else’s fault and that can be enormously cathartic.
In between games in squash matches (where, unlike at Wimbledon, you can confer with your coach) I’ve regularly had the obligatory tantrum, gazed furiously into the eyes of the coach, beleaguered by oxygen debt and overrun by adrenaline, willing him to gift me the answers. But in the end I have to work it out. I am the player. He or she, as coach, can help, but in the end only the person on the court can produce the complex network of decisions and actions that the player needs to win points and matches.
I don’t imagine all tennis players are guilty every time but it’s a natural human urge to look for reasons behind your own shortcomings, so bad vibes are then deflected from the performance. But some players, particularly in tennis, may have been guilty of making rash decisions, panicked into making change when the clever thing might be to knuckle down and work the process out with the people you showed faith in initially. And in Dimitrov’s case he does have time to work things out and to ride the storm. For the storms surely will come, whoever the coach is.
Unless an athlete is freakishly gifted, there will be extreme highs and lows. Development involves strong bursts of improvement followed by disheartening plateaus or dips; intermittent progress will be interspersed with demoralising failures. Even Usain Bolt, the epitome of excellence, knows this.
In squash I was perhaps most happy with the way the difficult periods were handled with my coach and the people around me. When there was bad form, we would talk endlessly, analyse, and exchange doubts. We questioned what we were doing and whether it was right, but unless there was some blindingly obvious deficiency, or a falling out, we were going to see it through together. Allaying the doubts and bad form together was part of the fun.
Dimitrov has a solid chance of reaching the top of the world but patience might have to be part of the plan. The things Dimitrov has done all his life and the things he does now all affect his future successes. If a slam win comes his way then it won’t be solely down to his next coach.
As good as Ivan Lendl is, isn’t it slightly unfair that Andy Murray’s previous coaches did not get much attention when he won his US Open and Wimbledon titles? It would be interesting to see whether Murray would have won the majors without the Czech. He’s that good a player perhaps he could have made it with Miles Maclagan, who he parted with in 2010. Put another way, if Lendl had been Murray’s coach when Murray was 24 would he have won two slams?
Coaches in some team sports, perhaps in tennis to a degree, are nowadays cut little slack. A coach can’t affect much within a matter of matches; he or she needs to settle and let the philosophies transmute. Coaches also need to be given room to fail.
Tony Smith, whose first job was to manage Huddersfield in Super League, lost 13 games in a row in his first season, which remains a record number of consecutive defeats in British rugby league for a coach who kept his job. They didn’t lose in the league the following season, returned to the top tier, and Smith went on to become one of the sport’s most successful managers.
So in some cases it might be wise for athletes to give these coaches, and themselves, more time and faith. You never know what it might lead to.