Simona Halep has confirmed that she has hired Darren Cahill as her new full-time coach for the 2016 season.
The two have worked together throughout the second half of 2015 with Cahill managing his work with Halep as well as his other commitments. They worked together in Halep’s final tournament of the season, the WTA Finals. The Romanian experienced disappointment in Singapore when she was knocked out in the round robin stages, despite being the top seed. Following her Singapore performance, Halep attributed injury to the early exit. Confirming the new partnership, Halep’s managed, Virginia Ruzici, released a statement to Romanian news website hotnews.ro (which is almost identical to Halep’s Facebook post).
“Starting in January 2016, the personal trainer of Simona Halep will be Darren Cahill. The Australian coach will retain the role of analyst men’s tennis for American network television ESPN at Grand Slam tournaments, without this preventing him from training full-time with Simona”. The statement reads.
Cahill has worked with numerous players throughout his career. He guided Lleyton Hewitt to world No.1 before working with other players such as Andre Agassi, Andy Murray, Daniela Hantuchova and Ana Ivanovic. He was also the Australian Davis Cup coach between 2007-2009.
Despite becoming Halep’s new full-time coach, Cahill will continue his work for ESPN as an analyst during every Grand Slam event.
The 24-year-old will end her year ranked second in the world, the best year-end ranking in her career. This year Halep has won three WTA titles (Shenzhen, Indian Wells and Dubai). In the lead up to the US Open Halep also reached back-to-back finals in Toronto and Cincinnati. She ends 2015 with $3,918,127 in prize money.
