Victoria Azarenka Makes It Official

by Savannah

victoria azarenka @vika7 · 3h 3 hours ago
Welcome to the team Wim! @wimfissette

With this simple announcement and photo on Twitter Victoria Azarenka confirmed that she will be working with Wim Fissette as her new coach.

After being blind sided by her coach of five years defection Azarenka had kept her social media presence low key and self centered until a fan in Doha spotted her hitting with Fissette and posted the pictures online. There were some reports that Vika would only be working with Fissette for about a week but the above Tweet implies a longer contract is in effect. I don't think Fissette would sign on for a one week trial as was reported in Belgian tennis circles since he has a known track record. His compatability with his new charge is what had to be proven.

What will he do for Azarenka? To be honest her former coach did all the heavy lifting changing her from a temperamental court presence to one who is in better control of herself and her game. Fissette will need to smooth out some rough areas in her approach to playing tennis though. The most frequently mentioned area by her fans is her serve.

I had to make sure Azarenka's news was deemed worthy by the WTA official site and I saw that they have indeed published something about it. Good. I wouldn't want one player to be favored over all others when it comes to coaching changes. I do wonder why they chose to picture Fissette with Kim Clijsters though.

I don't see Azarenka scheduled to play before Indian Wells so that is more than enough time for her and her new coach to make decisions on what to change and how to change it. I thought she'd play one of the warm up events to IW but it doesn't appear that she will.

I wish Victoria luck with her new arrangement personally and professionally.

Madison Keys

While looking to see where Azarenka is next scheduled to play I saw that Madison Keys has pulled out of Acapulco. Don't forget that that event is now played on a hard court and would've been a nice warm up for her before entering the cauldron of IW especially with Serena returning after over a decade away. I haven't read about her being injured either. I hope this isn't the US "focus on the majors" attitude coming from her and her team.

Miscellaneous

I watched Elias Ymer play Tommy Robredo in Rio last evening. Robredo is never an easy out even for seasoned veterans and while he's still coming back from injury I had no expectations of Ymer winning a set let alone the match.

Ymer was given a Wild Card into the Main Draw of this event and while a match against Robredo is a good way to see where you are especially on clay I wish he'd gotten into the Main Draw via Qualies instead. Handing a prospect WC's ends up being counterproductive because it can make the weight of expectations that much heavier and increase the sense of failure and being unable to compete at the highest level of more of a thought pattern than it needs be at a young age.

His game is still suited to hard court play but he is thinking a bit better than he was when I first saw him.

Meanwhile the kid I'm following for the next year Alexander Zverev played himself into the MD at Marseille where he will face Gaël Monfils in first round play.