Eugenie Bouchard begins her 2015 season in less than a month, but still hasn't hired a new coach

In the grand scheme of professional sports, the off-season in tennis is merely a split-step, just a brief pause before going left – or right – to attack the volley of a brand-new season.

In less than a month, Canadian tennis star Genie Bouchard will head to Perth, Australia, to represent Canada along with Vasek Pospisil at the exhibition team event, the Hopman Cup. Soon after that comes the first Grand Slam tournament of the 2015 season.

A semi-finalist a year ago at the Australian Open, Bouchard will want to send the message that after a challenging second half of 2014, she’s back and ready to take the next step.

But first, the 20-year-old must decide who she’ll take with her on that journey, now that she and longtime coach Nick Saviano have parted ways.

That’s no easy task. It’s been nearly a month since the split, and nary a word from Team Bouchard as the offseason flies by.

When Saviano’s press release went out a week ago, he took the high road about the end of his association with Bouchard, a player he has worked with since she was 12. Saviano did the same when we spoke exclusively last week.

The 59-year-old American can afford to. Unlike most of the coaches at the pro level, he could take or leave the job.

Through more than 30 years after his pro playing career ended, Saviano has worked with some of the biggest names in the game and over the years, many wanted him to be their full-time, traveling coach. Only when Bouchard came calling did he put aside his well-known dislike for traveling and sacrifice some of the time he devoted to his successful academy in Florida, to try to help make her dream come true.

“I’m very excited about 2015, and what we’ve got going on at the academy here with young, talented players,” Saviano told Eh Game. “I’m very much looking forward to moving forward.”

Saviano also has some online coaching ventures in the works, although he didn’t discount the possibility of coaching another high-level player down the line. “I will always leave my options open, but it has to be the right situation,” he said.

So, page turned, after a eight successful years together.

What’s the next step for Bouchard? What might she be looking for, and what does she need?

1) A coach willing to travel with her full time, to be there every step of the way.

That’s probably non-negotiable.

Saviano spent a few more weeks on the road with Bouchard than originally planned in 2014. But he wasn’t willing to bend much more on that. It was the tradeoff Bouchard made to continue to benefit from his experience and his deep knowledge of both her game and her personality. But while both claimed the nightly phone calls and the long-distance video analysis was working just fine, it had to be a challenge. In the end, no one had ever successful operated this way at the top of the women’s game. There’s probably a reason for that.

2) A high-profile coach, a big name

It’s definitely the latest trend, although it’s been felt more in the men’s game than on the WTA Tour side. That’s mostly because there are far more top-flight former male players who have remained in and around the men’s game, partly because of the Legends Tour.

In talking to various coaches and other knowledgeable people around tennis over the last week, a few names have popped up.

Former “all-star” coaches like Jimmy Connors Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl’s names have come up. But we can’t see Connors on the road full-time. And it’s not as though his previous coaching forays with Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova (especially Sharapova; that lasted … a week) were blockbuster successes.

As for Lendl, it’s hard to see him on the women’s side, either. Plus, wasn’t the main reason for his split from Andy Murray his unwillingness to spend even more weeks on the road?

A couple of other names: Brad Gilbert and Darren Cahill, have came up. Cahill got to know Bouchard a little as a junior, when she was part of the adidas team before signing on with Nike.

But our understanding is that neither has so far been approached by Team Bouchard. Certainly Bouchard and Gilbert had ample time to discuss it during the week-long exhibition event on Necker Island that both took part in two weeks ago.

Carlos Rodriguez (Justine Henin, Na Li)? Rodriguez could probably have his pick. But since Henin retired, he has been based at an academy in Beijing and has shown little interest in another traveling coaching gig. His association with Li was probably a one-off, his absence from a business that depends heavily on his name signed off on (at least for awhile) by the owners because of the prestige in China that would come from working with her.

Tour veteran Daniela Hantuchova worked with Rodriguez a little bit this fall, before she began her commitment to the new Asia-based IPTL League. But she went to him, not vice-versa.

Thomas Hogstedt (Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, Li Na, Sloane Stephens)? Another coach who has expressed a wish to travel a lot less, Hogstedt has been snapped up by Bouchard rival Simona Halep as a consultant through the Australian swing.

Miles Maclagan (who has coached Andy Murray and, most recently, Sam Stosur)? We’re told he wants to stay at home more; in fact, we’re told that he even turned down an opportunity to coach one of the most promising young players on the men’s side, Croatia’s Borna Coric. That job went to a coach with plenty of experience coaching top players on the WTA Tour side, Zeljko Krajan. So he’s off the list as well.

Paul Annacone? Unlikely that he’s interested, although his experience last year in dealing with Sloane Stephens and all of the attendant hoopla and attention that surrounded her rise to the top levels of the game would be just one more plus on his resumé. It also might be a red flag for him not to jump into the hornet’s nest again.

The top name on many peoples’ lists is Wim Fissette, a Belgian who coached Kim Clijsters and did such great things with Halep in 2014, before the Romanian decided she preferred to work with a countryman.

We’re told Fissette has reached out to the various agents, to let them know he’s available and willing to travel full-time. But Fissette tells Eh Game that he hasn’t been contacted by Bouchard or anyone around her.

3) A female coach

Even in late 2014, and even in the women’s game, this remains out-of-the-box thinking.

Amélie Mauresmo? She’s taken, as she has extended her partnership with Andy Murray for 2015.

Martina Navratilova? She has family and other commitments, and despite her experience at the top of the game, has little actual coaching experience to speak of even if she does occasionally work with players.

Chris Evert? (God help us all).

Nathalie Tauziat?
The Frenchwoman, a former Wimbledon finalist and world No. 3, coached Bouchard to her junior Wimbledon titles in 2012. She did a great job; Bouchard, who also was working with Saviano, decided at the end of 2013 to focus solely on Saviano’s voice and input.

Tauziat was coaching Bouchard’s countrywoman Aleksandra Wozniak in 2014. But with her shoulder woes (she finally had surgery in October), Wozniak could be out for the first half of 2015.

Tauziat likely is off the market already. We’re told she will be working with talented Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia (with whom she has previously consulted on occasion), more comprehensively in 2015.

4) A coach with experience taking a very good player to the very top level?

Antonio Van Grichen? Last seen working with Marcos Baghdatis, he’s a veteran of the WTA Tour wars (Victoria Azarenka, Vera Zvonareva, Ana Ivanovic). But he and Bouchard had a six-week tryout back in the summer of 2013; Van Grichen didn’t seem to come away from it with many positives – to say the least.

Ricardo Sanchez? The Spaniard has worked with, among others, Jelena Jankovic and Hantuchova. He doesn’t seem to be anywhere for very long although, at last word, he was working with Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig.

Eric Van Harpen? Beginning with Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Conchita Martinez, moving on toAnna Kournikova, Patty Schnyder, Nicole Vaidisova, Ivanovic and Maria Kirilenko, the veteran Dutchman has an illustrious resumé. After somewhat of a sabbatical, his most recent pupil was Andrea Petkovic, who made a terrific comeback from injury in 2014. Their collaboration officially ended a couple of weeks ago. Van Harpen is the coach of the Kazakhstan Davis and Fed Cup teams, and also works with countrywoman Michaella Krajicek.

 
In the end, Bouchard is unlikely to find a savvier, more experienced coach than Saviano.

He might be somewhat unknown to the Twitter generation – there was actually one tennis blog discussion that referred to Saviano as “Bouchard’s childhood coach” (as in, he was “some run-of-the-mill club coach who hit the jackpot aboard the Bouchard express, the type most players discard once they get there)” and that a “more experienced coach” would have helped her in the Wimbledon final against Kvitova. Uh, okay, then.

Bouchard should be able to find a coach who is willing to travel full-time – these are highly-coveted jobs. But even if Saviano and Bouchard, both strong-willed people, butted heads at times, he was always going to tell her what she needed to hear, not what she wanted to hear. That's hard to find. Most coaches depend on that job for their livelihood, and job security in the tennis coaching profession is tenuous enough as it is.

As well, as the father of three daughters around Bouchard's age, Saviano certainly has experience in that area.

It’s going to have to be someone who gets along well with Bouchard personally (and with her mother Julie); there has to be chemistry there. It has to be someone who has similar working methods, and someone who isn’t going to try to change a lot of things, because there’s simply no time.

It’s going to have to be someone who understands that there will be a lot of pressure and huge expectations on Bouchard in 2015, because she has a lot to live up to. And that he – or she – could very easily end up as the scapegoat by Indian Wells, if the Canadian’s results don’t measure up to those expectations. And that’s not good for a reputation.

To sum up, there’s a very short list of candidates who can tick several of the must-have boxes. And even fewer who tick them all – and are available.

A month down in the off-season, less than a month to go. The clock is ticking …