The biggest news to come out of the tennis world in the past 48 hours is the Novak Djokovic – Goran Ivanisevic split after 6 years together. The duo have won 12 Grand Slams together and built one of the most successful player-coach partnerships in men’s tennis history. As this news broke, speculations ran amok about who would be Djokovic’s next coach. In a segment for the Tennis Channel, Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig had an interesting suggestion regarding Roger Federer.
Monica Puig wants Swiss legend Roger Federer to be Djokovic’s coach. Puig, who became famous after her win at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, made this suggestion on air, albeit lightly.
Puig said, “We were even joking about in the green room before coming out here, Roger’s not doing anything, maybe it could be a good collab (chuckles), but I think Djokovic, he knows what he is doing. He is been doing this long enough to know what’s best for him at this point in his career.”
Although Puig mentions that she was joking, she didn’t discard the idea completely that it could be a possibility, Instead, she embraced it. However, this claim is baseless.
Novak Djokovic would not want one of his all-time greatest rivals and a fellow Big Three player to be his coach. More importantly, it’s not like Roger Federer is doing nothing. The 42-year-old Swiss is still very busy with endorsements, travels and his business endeavors. He is also keen on promoting the sport, globalizing it as much as possible, and traveling the world around for it. There are other philanthropic endeavors of Federer that he often keeps sharing about.
Although this was just pure speculation by Puig, fans didn’t take very kindly to it and started calling her out for it. Here are a few reactions:
Former US Open winner Andy Roddick has a separate interesting suggestion for Novak Djokovic
In the same segment for the Tennis Channel, 2003 US Open winner Andy Roddick joined Monica Puig and the host to share his ideas on this matter. Roddick too believes that Djokovic, a player who has achieved the most titles in tennis, knows best what he is doing so it would be best to leave it up to him about his next step. He does ideate that at age 37, Djokovic might not start afresh with a new coach after splitting up with Ivanisevic.
But just before closing the segment, Roddick shares a concrete name, merely out of speculation.
Roddick said, “This is pure speculation. I know nothing Steve, but it wouldn’t shock me to see Becker in the mix of that conversation.”
Roddick is of course referring to 6-time Grand Slam-winning German tennis legend and Novak Djokovic’s former coach Boris Becker. Becker coached Djokovic from 2013-2016. In those 3 years together, Djokovic won 6 Grand Slams and 14 ATP 1000 Masters titles.
Interestingly enough, Djokovic won his only French Open title till then, the 2016 one, under Becker’s tutelage; something that Becker never won himself as a player. It would be great to see Novak Djokovic and Boris Becker together again.
