Jack Sock suffered a slump after his most successful season in 2017, leading coach Alex Bogomolov to believe the American got complacent following his astounding run.
Sock won his maiden and only Masters title at the Paris Masters in 2017, made his debut at the ATP Finals and finished that year at a career-high ranking of World No.8. However, he soon began to rack up losses, winning only ten matches in 2018 and Bogomolov believes this was because he took his foot off the pedal.
"What happened to Jack is quite common for many tennis players. You have a season where you get a lot of points and the following year you feel the pressure," said Bogomolov. "I think his first mistake was to relax after getting the best ranking at the end of 2017.
"He didn't train as hard as he should have during that offseason and in that way he started 2018 with some unexpected losses. Confidence ran out and that season was really terrible."
Bogomolov, who once competed on the ATP circuit himself, added that an injuries in 2019 made it difficult for Sock to regain his fitness, leading the former World No.8 to contemplate retirement.
"Then at the beginning of 2019 he injured his thumb, he couldn't work on his fitness for six months and so when he returned at the end of that year he was overweight and also hurt his back," said Bogomolov. "He had to restart from the challengers but on a physical level he was not able to play even at that level and when he lost all his points he thought seriously about retiring,
"When we started talking, he had no coach and no plans to return to a high level. Together with his wife they were looking for accommodation in Charlotte but it was difficult for him to find a coach. I think we were lucky for each other to find us.
"It is fair to say, however, that when he reached the top 10 he was still quite young and up until that moment he had never had the pressure of having to win at all costs as he never had too many points to defend."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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