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Super-coaches play a big role in the Australian Open final four, and Canadian Milos Raonic has joined the party
MELBOURNE, Australia – The Australian Open men’s singles semi-final line-up of Djokovic, Federer, Murray and … Milos Raonic harkens back to an Australian Open exactly 25 years ago, when player-turned-commentator Patrick McEnroe reached the final four and came up with a press conference line that still has no equal.
“It's just like you all expected – Edberg, Lendl, Becker … and McEnroe.”
The joke, of course, was that Patrick’s younger, more accomplished brother John was the more likely fourth member of the quartet. But in a full-circle kind of way, this year’s semi-final line-up had an intrinsic kinship to that one.
Becker is now the supercoach, the coaching consultant to Djokovic. Lendl was the top former player who helped guide Murray to a breakthrough into Grand Slam champion territory and until a few months ago, Edberg was a mentor for Federer.
Raonic is playing the Patrick McEnroe outsider role this year, even though as the No. 13 seed, he wasn’t nearly the same kind of long shot as McEnroe was at the time. And, unlike McEnroe, he has a “supercoach” of his own in former No. 1 and Grand Slam champion Carlos Moyá of Spain.
As Raonic prepares to take on No. 2 seed Murray Friday night for a spot in the final, he is attempting to do what Murray did years ago with Lendl – put the finishing touches on his promising talent in the hopes that he, too, can break into an exclusive top group that hasn’t allowed any new members the last few years.
Moyá is likely to get an outsized share of the credit for the impressive start Raonic has had in 2016, even though he officially only came on duty, in terms of being actually present, less than two weeks ago when both he and Raonic arrived in Melbourne. It’s that way with a new face, like a shiny penny that distracts the eye. And because no one can really quantify what the new breed of super-coaches actually does – it’s not as though Moyá came in and completely changed the technique on Raonic’s backhand, say, turning it from a liability to a strength – there’s sort of a delicious mystery to it.
What’s less of a mystery is what the 25-year-old Canadian did during the off-season to lay the foundation for his quest. The credit for that is largely due to Riccardo Piatti, a career coach will continue to be the one who oversees the hours and hours of daily practice, the grunt work that goes into the making of the champion.
After the 2015 season ended prematurely because of Raonic’s back woes, he and Piatti, and the rest of his support team, got to work.
“We had a very clear through process with the practice system. It wasn’t so much like other off-seasons have been, where you sort of get into them and continue through. I had six weeks of playing. I didn’t take a break from when I stopped the season until Dec. 23,” Raonic told Eh Game. “I went straight into rehab for 2 1/2 weeks, then I started playing slowly to see if my back would react again, then playing more and more. Then I went to IPTL, played there, flew back, and the same day I arrived went straight into rehab for a few days before I amped up the playing again.”
Raonic said he had nine weeks. “And those nine weeks can maybe open your eyes to things.”
The notion of going to play in the IPTL, a big-money exhibition league in Asia in December whose mere existence is blamed for everything from its exploitation of the greediness of players to an increase in injuries because it makes a short off-season even shorter, was actually intended as a bit of a break from the hours Raonic had been putting in.
His team didn’t think that keeping up that pace for nine weeks straight was sustainable, and going to IPTL meant he could play some tennis against top-quality players without pushing it quite so hard.
What happened was that Raonic was often scheduled for the last of the five team matches each evening. Before he could even get on court, he was standing and sitting for up to 2 1/2 hours and then only be able to hit a few balls before his match started. Cumulatively, that had an effect on the fragile back, so Raonic had to make a big-picture call about his participation.
The silver lining was that Moyá was also playing (the league format includes a legends’ match).
Raonic knew of him, but he didn’t really know him. They had dinner once, when Raonic was being coached by Moyá’s friend and fellow Spaniard Galo Blanco.
They ended up practicing together 2 1/2 hours every morning, talking about his game, talking about what he might do to get better and finally take that next step.
“There are very few former players who would be excited about being six hours on court every day during the offseason,” Raonic said. “So it was about what can we do in tournaments, and in the leadup to tournaments, to really put the pieces together that I work on with Riccardo and really make the difference,” Raonic said.
He knows, from his experience with former coach Ivan Ljubicic – himself a former world No. 3 but not at the same level as the other super-coaches mentioned above – that you have to take what they can give.
“With a former player, they give you as much as they can, but maybe if they see there’s a dip in form, see things aren’t to their liking … Don’t forget, as a player, everything was about you. And that changes. When you’ve been a coach your whole life, you never had it that way. You’ve always adjusted to somebody. I think it’s really hard to have a former player in a coach-player relationship that can really last. I’m not sure anyone has really done it,” he said.
Moyá, who said he’s been approached by players to coach them before, hadn’t taken the plunge until now because with a young family, having already done it for years, he wasn’t prepared for the road grind week after week.
That’s been true, generally, of that class of 2001 as well. Edberg initially committed to a year with Federer, was persuaded to extend that another year, but could not be convinced to continue. Ljubicic now plays that role for him.
Lendl worked with Murray for several years, taking him over that hump from contender to champion. It was almost as if, after Murray won Wimbledon and broke that “British curse” that had lasted some 76 years that Lendl felt his work was done, even if the relationship lasted longer than that.
Becker is still there, without anyone other than perhaps Djokovic really knowing what he brings to the table, the TV cameras constantly panning to him, stone-faced but with spectacular hair, during matches.
But the way Djokovic is playing these days, why fix what isn’t broken?
In the end, it’s up to the player to execute no matter what anyone, regardless of the brilliance of their resumé, tells them.
“I don’t think I really look up that much (to the coaches’ box) any more. I’m more mature and I take full responsibility for what happens on the court. That’s how I try to go about things. It’s not about looking for answers in somebody else,” Raonic said.
“Whatever they can tell me, it’s something I already have within myself.” he added. “Can I find it? That’s another question.”
