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Davis Cup winner Dmitry Tursunov spoke in an interview with Sport about how he became a charismatic coach for girls , why he didn’t want to be a Russian language teacher for an Estonian athlete and couldn’t get to know a woman’s soul, and also how the so-called patriots vacationing abroad anger him.
They made a joke in the men’s locker room
— Is your current musketeer image related to your work with tennis players?
— When I was young, I had long hair. At some point after finishing his playing career, he began to grow them back. Now I think: if I cut my hair, I’ll never grow it back. So you have to live up to the image.
— When you finished your playing career, did you assume that you would become a very popular coach of tennis players?
— In the locker room, the guys joked: “When you finish playing, you’ll train the girls.” It seemed like they were joking in a good way, as always happens in men’s locker rooms, and well, they got the joke done!
— You worked with Arina Sabalenko, Elena Vesnina, Emma Raducanu, Belinda Bencic, Veronica Kudermetova. How did you manage to immediately gain the trust of top tennis players?
— We started working with Sabalenka when she was not yet in the top 50. It was difficult to call her an elite player. It is clear that there was potential, but it was necessary to work and work. I admit, it’s hard to call me an easy-to-communicate coach; I’m demanding and results-oriented. I don’t let my charges go downhill. This often interferes with work, especially when the tennis player wants to take a breath, and then the coach pushes her even more! Although everyone I worked with was also focused on results and understood where they needed to improve. Most likely, they understood that the same coach was next to them.
— Coming to the tournament St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy, Estonian tennis player Anett Kontaveit complained that she wanted to improve her Russian, but both you and her friend Daria Kasatkina preferred to communicate in English…
— Actually, Kontaveit hired me as a trainer, not a Russian language teacher. For me, who left for the USA at the age of 12, it makes no difference what language I speak. It’s even difficult to assess which language is the first for me today — Russian or English. Anette’s English is so good, even her accent is typically British, that communicating with her in Russian would be blasphemy.
— Is it difficult to find a common language with husbands or boyfriends of tennis players?
— I gained such experience while working with Kudermetova. She is trained by her husband, Sergei Demekhin. There were no problems with him. I can’t even call myself Veronica’s full-fledged coach. More like a consultant. I understood perfectly well that two coaches may have different views on certain moments. That is why he immediately determined his role in Kudermetova’s team. Although Sergei and I have very similar views. He invited me to join the work with his wife, and it turned out quite well. Kudermetova won the WTA 500 tournament in Tokyo and performed well at the Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. My exactingness played some role in these successes. Veronica herself admitted this, asking now to give her a little break. Although it is possible that we will continue cooperation.
— Is Kudermetova a top-5 tennis player by her potential?
— Veronica has all the data to be in the top 10. In order to be in the top five, you need to be super motivated. Spaniard Paula Badosa has all the data to become the first racket of the world. Only now, when she is in the midst of an affair with Stefanos Tsitsipas, she doesn’t always want to play tennis. The potential needs to be transformed into a technical arsenal and tactical developments, and then put everything together and hope for luck.
— Can you say that, working with the world's leading tennis players, you got to know the incomprehensible female soul?
— The longer As I work, the more I become convinced that it is impossible to know her. Working with tennis players is hard, but it’s not easy working with tennis players either. Everyone has different characters, different expectations from cooperation with a coach. Any athlete needs to find his coach.
Five-set matches will disappear
— Do you often remember the historic match with Andy Roddick at the Davis Cup — 2006 and how do you like the current format of this tournament?
— The match with Roddick is a story that is now long past. The current Davis Cup is unusual for many. Even Novak Djokovic criticized him. Only every year it became more and more difficult to add four weeks of Davis Cup matches to the calendar. And even in a five-set format without tiebreakers. I think that such matches will generally become history, and even at the Grand Slams there will be no five-set matches.
— Tennis players have always been citizens of the world. You lived and trained in the USA, but always played for Russia. Is the current neutral status in which our ATP and WTA players perform reflected on tennis players?
— I haven’t talked to the guys about this topic, but these rules wouldn’t really bother me. It is clear that political issues are prevailing now, but in two or three years everything may return to normal. There are now more problems for those guys who train in Russia with logistics.
— Is there some kind of red line that cannot be crossed in order to compete at the Olympics or Grand Slam tournaments in a neutral status?
— It’s difficult for me to understand people who scream about patriotism with foam at the mouth, but relax in foreign resorts. Politics can always interfere in life. Even within a company, you are friends with some people, but not with others. It's easier to get along with cats than with some people. For this reason, I avoid making any assessments of politics and politicians.
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