Amongst all the chatter surrounding Novak Djokovic's split with six year coach, Goran Ivanisevic, John Lloyd has offered a 'left-field' option that in his mind should be considered.
The ex-husband of Chris Evert and former tennis star and commentator said on the Tennis Channel Inside-In Podcast that John McEnroe could be an outside pick for his next coach despite of course McEnroe being a popular commentator and pundit. He barely has experience coaching apart from Milos Raonic in 2016 where he was criticised for still working punditry at the time similar to Boris Becker and Holger Rune at this year's Australian Open. He has also offered his services to Jannik Sinner and Nick Kyrgios among others in the past. Albeit Djokovic has said in the past day that he may not even adopt a new coaching setup.
"I would almost go sort of left-field, I would go with someone like John McEnroe. I know he probably wouldn't do it. I think he's gotta go somewhere," John Lloyd said on the Tennis Channel Inside-In podcast. "He doesn't need someone who's going to be doing drills and stuff."
"It's the mind, it's almost like the re-energizing, the motivation, the days before, the nights before the big matches. The day of the big matches, motivating. I know he's self-motivated, don't get me wrong,"
"I don't know, just someone that's out there who's going to give a kind of fresh, like, 'You know, I'm X years older and all that, but I don't think it's that, it's not.'"
Lloyd also sees Djokovic benefitting more from a motivator instead of a conventional style of coach. "It's just mentally saying things at the right time. You know, amusing things. In-your-face type of things, I don't know, that's kind of where I am looking now. I'm sure I'm completely wrong but that's kind of what I suddenly thought, I thought someone like that would be an interesting fit."
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🎙️Novak Djokovic on coach Goran Ivanisevic:
"Goran is a friend for life."
"Quite simply, the saturation point has been reached. We felt it was time to part ways."
"We wrote the pages of the history of #tennis, won countless Grand Slams, finished in 1st place for so many years."