Paes and Hingis: “I was never really completely out of the picture, away from tennis. It was always part of my life one way or another” - UBITENNIS
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Paes and Hingis: “I was never really completely out of the picture, away from tennis. It was always part of my life one way or another”

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TENNIS AUSTRALIAN OPEN – 1st of February 2015. Paes/Hingis d. Nestor/Mladenovic 6-4, 6-3. An interview with Leander Paes and Martina Hingis

 

Q. What is it like to guide another young partner through the mine fields?

MARTINA HINGIS: That’s a good one. I love it.

LEANDER PAES: That’s a brilliant first question. It’s a treat to play with Martina. Like she said a little earlier today, I finally managed to learn some things from her returns and returned half decently today. It’s intriguing. In every match we’ve played, we’ve had to overcome some obstacle, a bad start, one day our serve wasn’t working, one day our returns weren’t working. Today we started great. But we played two champions. They kept oncoming at us. We broke them, they broke back. We broke them again, they broke back. Today was just a matter of patience, our understanding of the game of tennis, our understanding of each other came through. It’s just a treat to win your 16th, my 15th (laughter).

MARTINA HINGIS: You have plenty of time to catch up.

LEANDER PAES: It’s a lot of fun, mate.

Q. You made your first appearance here in 1994, Leander. Do you have any idea when your last will be? Can you see yourself coming back for a good few years yet?

LEANDER PAES: Actually, yes, I can. Actually I was really happy when I was in the gym just now. After all our matches we go and do our training and stuff. The best thing that happened today was my coach came back in and he said, Lee, your speed’s back. If you can impress your coach on any given day, you’re doing pretty well. Normally they’re your biggest critics, they’re the toughest ones that you struggle to impress. My dad said as soon as we won, I called him, he goes, Okay, now you have to focus on the next one. I said, Dad, it hasn’t even been five minutes (laughter). But I love the game of tennis. To play with this champion who I keep learning from every day is a lot of fun. I look forward to being back soon.

Q. Martina, did you get a chance to look at the walk of champions walking out?

MARTINA HINGIS: Yeah, that’s the coolest thing about it, when you walk there. Lee, a couple times now we got to play on center court, I love that photo. It’s a very heavy photo when I won here. It’s full of excitement, the joy you have out there when you go and play. Lee is just a really great partner to have. Been there, done that, he knows what he’s doing. I don’t have to tell him anything. Just like today, he was really keeping me out there, stay focused, especially at the end, compared to the other matches, today there was a lot of tension. It’s finals, playing the defending champions. They both are, you know, great competitors, like he said. You think like you have them, then they bounce back. She serves great for a girl. She doesn’t have any letdowns, only a little bit at the end where we could really jump on that and take advantage. But the rest of the match, it was always like every point counts. It was a huge difference today. It was not as physical maybe, but it was more of a mental match today.

LEANDER PAES: Isn’t this your 15th Australian Open final today? Does any have that stat? No one has done their homework (laughter). I thought today was your 15th Australian Open final. That’s unbelievable.

MARTINA HINGIS: Only my second mixed. But I haven’t lost a finals yet. Feels good.

Q. Martina, what stage did you decide to make a commitment again to playing tennis, just in doubles? Did something in your life happen that you missed it too much? What was it and when?

MARTINA HINGIS: I was never really completely out of the picture, away from tennis. It was always part of my life one way or another. I was playing some exhibitions, then I was coaching a little bit. Now being back, I mean, the coaching probably got me more into it because I was playing with the girls, hitting, being face-to-face to the best players in the world like Anastasia, Sabine, obviously one of the biggest hitters. So that felt like, you know, maybe I can play with them, only halfcourt. I don’t have to run that much. Obviously when we’re practicing, it’s halfcourt only. I was playing with them. I felt like I could still hold my own. Lee has been on me for three years. We played TeamTennis for a couple years. Let’s play the US Open. We were holding the trophy, I told him, I was so scared. Maybe I should have done it earlier, played a couple tournaments together already. But I was just really scared to — I wasn’t ready to take the tension, be on court. But he kept going on me.

Q. Martina, what does it mean to you to be tasting success here so many years after your first visit to this tournament?

MARTINA HINGIS: Yeah, no, in the ceremony my voice became really little. After 20 years being back on that court, like I said in my speech, who would have thought. It’s not even like the cherry on top, it’s more than that to be there and to be able to hold another trophy with Leander. It’s more than I could ever dream of, yeah.

Q. Martina, are you hoping to play the Olympics next year?

MARTINA HINGIS: Right now we’re very far away. We’re really enjoying the moment to be here, to have the title. I mean, it’s out there, definitely. It’s something that would be probably — I mean, I haven’t played Olympics since ’96, so…

Q. You’ve played with approaching 100 different partners. Obviously Martina is the very best. But for the grass-roots player, the regular player out there, what is the key for a doubles player to adjust to a new partner?

LEANDER PAES: The first thing is to know yourself really well. If you know yourself really well and you’re honest with yourself about your strengths and more importantly your weaknesses, then you choose a partner whose strengths are your weaknesses. So my return of serve on a good day is average.

MARTINA HINGIS: It was pretty good today.

LEANDER PAES: But to pick a partner who has got such quick thought from the baseline, even when she’s playing mixed doubles, when the guys are popping serves at her. Daniel Nestor is one of the best mixed doubles servers in the game. He is lefty. He has this wicked slice serve on the ad court, which is Martina’s side. He can hit his spot down the T. To see how quick Martina reacts to it in her thought process, then commits to a shot, that’s something I learned. Now, when I’m at the net, when I have less time, I’ve got sharp eyes, I pick up things quick. When I have less time, I’m lightning fast. When I have too much time, my Indian genetics, I think too much. Martina, you pick a shot and stick to it. Any up-and-coming youngster in any walk of life, it’s not about yourself. You got to learn yourself quick, then you play for the team. The sum of two individuals have got to be greater than two. So the sum of all the individuals has got to be greater than that many people that are there.

Q. Why do Indians think too much?

LEANDER PAES: Oh, boy, I could be all day here (laughter).

Q. Are there already plans to play further Grand Slams together?

LEANDER PAES: If she let me. I don’t know if she will. MARTINA HINGIS: Of course. We already talked about this. It’s not only the fact that we won, but just feel really comfortable with one another to go out there. Right now it does feel a little bit invincible, especially on the hard courts because we just really fulfill each other. I think it’s like what I don’t do as well, you do well, and the opposite. That’s how to choose a partner. I think it’s also the key. I feel like if I execute my things very well, he’s going to take over and do the rest of it. Like if I hit a great return, I know he’s all over the top of the net and he’s going to finish the job. So it makes me feel like, Okay, I do execute well, I’m done, my job’s good.

LEANDER PAES: But you know what’s actually special about you is that I’ve had so many partners, and as we’ve gone on winning Grand Slams and winning big things, the lesson to keep learning and improving diminishes a little bit. It gets a bit stale. I don’t know exactly how many Grand Slams you’ve won, but you’ve won a lot. To actually come off a match where you’ve won another Grand Slam here, to go out and say, Let’s go to the gym and do the hard yards, let’s do our biking, our abs and our back.

MARTINA HINGIS: Only because I have a partner. I don’t want to suffer by myself.

LEANDER PAES: But that’s really actually one thing that stands out. For a champion who has done it all, to still take that extra half hour after a Grand Slam win and enjoy the hard yards, to enjoy yesterday where we had booked a practice for one hour, ended up practicing two hours. We had fun.

MARTINA HINGIS: It was fun, yeah. It’s already two hours we’ve been out here.

LEANDER PAES: I think tennis, we’re so blessed as human beings or as athletes to have such a great sport, to have such a great profession. We put on shorts, we put on T-shirts, we have legends of the game going out onto a court in front of a packed stadium sometimes. People are paying top dollar in a hard economy. We go out and earn a living. We’re really blessed, you know. We’re really, really blessed. Thanks to you guys we get out there to reach our millions of fans around the world. Life has been very kind to us. We try and give back.

Interviews

EXCLUSIVE: Why Carlos Martinez Is No Longer Coaching Daria Kasatkina

After four years of working together, the former mentor of the world No.8 speaks exclusively to Ubitennis about why their partnership came to a sudden end.

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It is pretty standard for a player to announce in some form of a statement that they have decided to change their coach but Daria Kasatkina didn’t do that. Instead, her girlfriend, Natalia Zabiiako, broke the news in a vlog posted on her YouTube channel. 

 

The revelation caught many off guard. Whilst the WTA Tour is known for its frequent coaching changes, the French Open semi-finalist had been working with Carlos Martinez since June 2019 and enjoyed some of the biggest success of her career under his guidance. Four out of her six WTA titles were won during this period and last year was the first time she reached the last four of a major. 

So what was the reason for this change? Kasatkina has had a roller-coaster start to the season. In Adelaide, she reached the final before losing to Belinda Bencic. However, in her five other tournaments played this year the Russian has failed to win back-to-back matches. 

“There are some reasons (why we have stopped working together). It is not about tennis but it is about other priorities that I have and I have some principles that I want to follow,” Martinez tells Ubitennis.
“We have a different points of view about things and it is better that we do it like this.”

Martinez’s initial comment only sparked more curiosity about what was it that went wrong. The Spaniard has previously worked with the likes of Svetlana Kuznetsova, Marc Lopez, Kateryna Kozlova and Feliciano Lopez. He is also the head of his own tennis academy called CMC Competition which is located roughly 20km outside of Barcelona. 

As Kasatkina begins a trial with Italian coach Flavio Cupolla, Martinez spoke at length with Ubitennis about his time working with the tennis star, why they have separated and his plans for the future. 

UBITENNIS: Was Daria’s decision to stop working with you unexpected? 

MARTINEZ: It was an expected decision from my side. It was not a big surprise. I was very sad because I loved working with Dasha. She is a great girl and a great player. I think our connection on the court was really good but in the end, there were things about what she was doing, in my opinion, off the court. In my opinion, these were not the best for her career. That’s why she has decided to stop because our last conversation was the same way. Then I think she was a bit tired and not agreeing with my point of view of how she has to do things off the court. 

 UBITENNIS: You said the decision to stop working together was not about tennis but principles. What do you mean by this? 

MARTINEZ: As a coach, I want to do things in a way. I think if you want to be a top player you have to do better and better every single year because if you want to be at the top of the rankings you have to be more precise with how you do it. Especially off the court. That’s why I think we had different points of view on the things that one professional tennis player has to do. 

 UBITENNIS: What were the different points of view between you and Daria? 

MARTINEZ: I am not saying what she was doing was wrong because she is a very good professional. But I feel that on some days she has to take care if she wants to be there. There is a lot of pressure, she has to work on very specific things and I think that she has to manage her time off the court a bit better. 

Our points of view are a bit different. I like to just focus on tennis and try to do my best. To invest more time to get better every day and that’s why I was thinking a bit differently. I respect Dasha because in the end, it’s her career and her decision. She is an adult and she has to make her decisions. It’s not a problem for me. 

 UBITENNIS: Daria is sometimes inconsistent on the Tour with her results. Do you think this is due to the technical side of her game or is it more to do with her mentality? 

MARTINEZ: Of course, Dasha is a very good player. She is not the kind of player who can win a point with one or two shots. She has to work and that’s why it’s more mental for her. She has to be more technical than others but she has the ability to do this. She is a super-talented player. The technical part, of course, is important but it is more about how she manages her emotions to get success. 

 UBITENNIS: You have worked together for four years. What would you say was your greatest achievement with Daria? 

MARTINEZ: It was a very intense four years. I enjoyed it a lot with Dasha because she is a very good player and is easy to work with because she can do everything. She is a talented player. 

The best achievement with Dasha was making her a consistent player and getting her to play all kinds of games. In the end, she was this player who could play with (big) hitters, stable players etc. She had the weapons to beat them. 

She has won good tournaments such as the WTA 500s. She has played in the semi-finals of big events such as Roland Garros which was a very good result. She was a consistent player and last year I think that after three years of working very hard together, she got what she deserved. 

So our biggest achievement is Dasha becoming more consistent and understanding the game much better. I can’t focus on one result but the fact she reached the WTA Finals last year was a good signal that she was doing things well. 

 UBITENNIS: I understand the separation has just happened but have you thought about what you want to do next? Are you still interested in working with a WTA/ATP player or do you want to spend more time working at your academy? 

MARTINEZ: I don’t know what I’m going to do. The truth is that I do have some offers to work with WTA players which for me is good. I like working on the women’s circuit. But at the moment I don’t want to move from my academy. I want to stay here and work with those at the academy who trust the way that I work. Also, I want to enjoy time with my family. 

But you never know in this world. It is full of opportunities and if something interesting comes up… I am going to study (the opportunity) and see if it’s good. 

I will wait and see. I will not change anything from the way I teach tennis. 

 UBITENNIS: Following up on my previous question – are there any players you would like to work with if you had the opportunity to do so?

MARTINEZ: If my mind I have some players that I would like (to work with). Of course, it’s better and easier if you feel that the player can follow your way. 

I feel that I have a lot of passion and power to help players who want to keep improving and working hard. Tennis is my passion and nothing is going to stop it. Even this situation with Dasha which is very sad. I’m ready to help whoever wants to achieve something good. 

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ATP

(EXCLUSIVE) Fernando Verdasco: “If I still played At The Level Of 2009, I Could Win A Major”

“When I was No. 7 in the world, the top four players were winning every tournament. It was impossible to get an important title under your belt,” says 39-year-old Fernando Verdasco. “Now everybody stands a fair chance.”

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By Marco Lorenzoni

Earlier this week Ubitennis conducted an exclusive interview with Spanish veteran Fernando Verdasco after his loss to Mackenzie MacDonald in the first round of the Dallas Open. Despite his 39 years of age and several physical issues, Nando (Verdasco’s nickname) continues to look to the future with optimism.

 

UBITENNIS: Fernando, you got to your first round match after playing two tough qualification matches. How did you feel from a physical point of view?

VERDASCO: The toughest match was definitely the first qualifying round against Zhu which I won 7-6 in the third set. I felt more tired after that match than yesterday (Monday), but last night I felt a slight pain in my forearm and elbow which I had to undergo surgery on in the last two years. Even after the Australian Open, I faced some lesser physical problems that did not allow me to play the two Challengers before this tournament. Obviously, when you play three straight matches you have very little time to recover and a sore elbow makes everything more complicated. I wasn’t able to serve at the same level (in the first round) as in the previous two matches. That made it hard against a player like McDonald who is playing great and is at a higher level than those I played against in the qualifying matches. However, I was leading 3-2 in the first set and also in the second there were many close games which unfortunately I didn’t manage to win. Tennis is like that, you can win a match 6-1 6-1 but every game goes to deuces and you are just lucky that day to win the decisive points. From this point of view was a bad day for me, but I’m still happy I played three matches in the same tournament and I hope it will help me and give me more confidence over the next weeks.

UBITENNIS: In recent seasons we have seen several players winning Masters 1000 or achieving excellent results in the Majors. You reached your best ranking, No. 7, in 2009. D do you think the general level today is comparable to when you were at the peak of your career?

VERDASCO: I think it’s very different today. When I reached the seventh position of the ranking, the top four players were basically winning every single tournament they participated in. It was practically impossible for other players to imagine winning a Major or a top event.  Only Cilic, Del Potro and Wawrinka managed to win a slam in that period. During almost 20 years and in 80 slams it just happened on three or four occasions. Now there is certainly more space for everyone, from a certain point of view it is fairer … If you ask me if I would prefer to occupy the seventh position today or in 2009, my answer is today. Roger has just retired, Murray is no longer at the same level he was ten years ago and Rafa unfortunately is constantly struggling with injuries. I have the feeling that the seventh seed in a big tournament stands a real chance of winning. In my time it wasn’t possible.

UBITENNIS: What are your plans for the coming weeks? Have you already decided with your family and team which tournaments you are going to play?

VERDASCO: Fortunately I’ve been given two wild cards, for Delray Beach next week and Doha the week after. I hope I’ll not have any issues with my elbow so at least I can participate in these two events. As for the month of March, I still have no idea if I’ll play in Dubai and rest in the week of Indian Wells to return to Miami. I could also skip Dubai and play the Sunshine Double. It will all depend on my physical condition and how my body responds in the next two weeks.

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Focus

EXCLUSIVE: ‘A Bit Worried’ – Daria Kasatkina’s Coach On Her Australian Open Exit

Carlos Martinez reveals what exactly happened to Kasatkina’s form during her shock first round exit at Melbourne Park.

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Image via WTA Twitter

The mentor of Daria Kasatkina admits that he is ‘a bit worried’ about her most recent performances on the Tour but is maintaining a positive outlook for the weeks ahead. 

 

Kasatkina, who was seeded eight at the Australian Open, suffered one of the heaviest defeats of her career in the first round where she lost 6-1, 6-1, to Varvara Gracheva who is ranked almost 90 places lower than her. The world No.8 only managed to win two points behind her second serve and hit a costly 23 unforced errors against three winners. Overall, she was on the court for less than an hour. 

The performance was not easy viewing for Kasatkina’s coach Carlos Martinez. A Spanish-based former player who has also previously worked with Svetlana Kuznetsova, Marc Lopez, Kateryna Kozlova and Feliciano Lopez. Speaking to Ubitennis shortly after arriving back in his home country, Martinez provided some insight into what went wrong at Melbourne Park. 

“It was not the best. The truth is she was managing very badly because we expected to play on Tuesday. Then at the end, she played on Wednesday evening,” he said. 
“We spent Tuesday waiting a lot of hours at the club. The first day was ok but the second day for her was tough. It’s not an excuse, this is what it was.”

Kasatkina’s match was among those affected by mother nature. Earlier this week, there was a three-hour delay to play due to the blistering heat. Then showers disrupted matches on the outside courts multiple times.

Although the encounter against Gracheva wasn’t the only disappointing result the Russian has experienced this year. At the Adelaide International 2, she looked to be in top form after reaching the final before losing 6-0, 6-2, to Belinda Bencic. In an unfortunate coincidence, last year Kasatkina also reached a tournament final (winning a title) a week before the US Open and then lost in the first round of the Grand Slam. 

“There was zero energy, it was windy and the court was very fast. She didn’t do so well, she played not good. This is the truth because to lose 6-1, 6-1…..in her position now it’s very tough,” Martinez admits.
“Especially after the last week when she was doing well (In Adelaide) against Barbora Krejčíková and Petra Kvitova where she played two very good matches. The final against Bencic wasn’t good. So that’s why I’m a bit worried because the last two matches were very easy scores (against Kasatkina).”

In the eyes of her coach, Kasatkina’s biggest problem during matches doesn’t involve the upper part of her body. It is another part of her body which is biggest factor. 

“Physically when she doesn’t have this energy in her legs it is more difficult for her because she doesn’t have as impressive strokes and depends a lot more on her legs.” He commented. 

Although there is still no reason to panic just yet given the credentials of the 25-year-old. So far in her career, she has won six Tour titles and reached the semi-finals of the French Open last year. She has also recorded 19 wins over top 10 players with six of those victories occurring during 2022. 

“I am not worried because I know that it is just the beginning of the season and we have to keep working,” Martinez states. “We will adjust a few things but not change her preparation a lot because in my opinion every day we are working one hundred percent.’
“I’m expecting better results when we are in Abu Dhabi. There are three super tough tournaments (coming) but we are going to prepare well to get ready to compete and to try to win matches. We will see how it goes.”

Kasatkina is the only top 10 player to not win a match at this year’s Australian Open. 

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