Robson Makes Changes In Her Team

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 7th March 2014

Robson Makes Changes In Her Team

epa03838457 Laura Robson of Great Britain serves to Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain during their match on the first day of the 2013 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA, 26 August 2013. The US Open runs through Monday 09 September, a 15-day schedule for the first time. EPA/JASON SZENES |

Laura Robson may be currently sidelined from WTA action because of a painful left wrist but that doesn’t stop the top ranked British player on the women’s circuit from changing around her support team and for the fourth time in little more than a year she has announced a new coach, Mauricio Hadad.

The Colombian clearly impressed Robson when he spent a couple of years working with her Fed Cup team-mate Heather Watson and now steps into the role filled previously by the partnership of Nick Saviano and Jesse Witten (for slightly more than two months), Miles Maclagan (four months) and Zeljko Krajan (nine months). Other previous advisors include Patrick Mouratoglou, Sven Groeneveld and Martjn Bok.

Max Eisenbud, Robson’s high profile agent with IMG who also handles the careers of Maria Sharapova and Li Na, is the man behind the appointment of 43 year-old Hadad who, while the rest of the WTA circuit (with the exception of the Williams sisters) is focused on the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, is working on guiding his new charge back to match fitness at the IMG Bollettieri Academy in Bradenton, Florida.

Although Robert Lansdorp and Nick Bollettieri have largely been the coaches credited with guiding Sharapova during her formative years, Hadad also had a crucial input, both during her time at Bradenton and more so as a traveling coach. With Robson, Hadad is working in tandem with fitness coach Mark Wellington, who was also part of the early Team Sharapova.

At the Australian Open, Eisenbud dropped hints that the Saviano/Witten coaching set up was only a temporary measure and he was looking for something far more permanent. The fact Saviano is also committed to coaching world no. 19 Eugenie Bouchard, complicated the set-up.

It is understood that while Robson and Bouchard were previously the closest of friends for several years, a metaphorical tug-of-war over Saviano’s attentions caused the pair of former Wimbledon junior champions to become alienated.

Hadad saw Watson rise to a career high 39th place on the WTA rankings in 2012 and become the first British player to win a title on the main women’s circuit for 24 years. Robson, a career high world no.27 after Wimbledon last year, this week finds herself in 54th position.

In 2014 she was forced to withdraw from the year-opening Auckland event, retire after little more than a set in Hobart and has not played since losing 6-3,6-0 to Kirsten Flipkens in the opening round of the Australian Open when she was clearly experiencing excruciating pain in her wrist.

Last month she said: “You have small niggles all the time, but last year over the grass season and the clay season where I was playing pretty well, I was healthy. I’d love to get back to that and that’s what I’m going to work towards.”

Topics: 10sballs, BNP Paribas Open, Eugenie Bouchard, Fed Cup, Heather Watson, IMG, Indian Wells, Kirsten Flipkens, Laura Robson, Li Na, Maria Sharapova, Mauricio Hadad, Max Eisenbud, Nick Saviano, Patrick Mouratoglou, Sports, sven groeneveld, Tennis, Tennis News, Wta