Coach Bertrand Perret on working with Garcia with split before WTA Finals: “It was a blast to work with her, but she’s maybe even too perfectionist”

Caroline Garcia split with her coach ahead of the WTA Finals in a shock move that certainly did not impact her at the WTA Finals.

She capped off her fantastic year with some amazing tennis in Forth Worth winning the WTA Finals which was the biggest trophy she won all year. Her former coach was happy to see her succeed at the event explaining that it was a blast to work with her:

“It was a long journey, she’s such a perfectionist girl. She’s really professional, it was a blast to work with her, but she’s maybe even too perfectionist. She didn’t accept to make mistakes. With her risky game, if you don’t accept to make mistakes, you get frustrated."

Garcia plays a very aggressive brand of tennis, one that sees you commit quite a few errors which was hard to accept for her. Perret tried to change that about her approach and he was able to relax her a little bit because it was important for her to let go of her perfectionist nature:

"You don’t have a type of game which is similar to (Sara) Sorribes Tormo or (Simona) Halep, you have a type of game where you take a lot of risks. If she wanted to get better in practice and to not get frustrated in matches, Caroline needed to accept making mistakes."

He concluded with:

"It was not easy at the beginning, I really had a hard time to make her understand that because she’s so perfectionist. I’m happy, now she sees things relatively a bit more. In a match, it’s okay even when there are some mistakes."