Coach
Sascha Bajin confirmed his split with
Alycia Parks after the recent WTA 1000
Miami Open. The German coach made a name for himself as a hitting partner for
Serena Williams and later worked as
Naomi Osaka's coach during her first two
Grand Slam titles.
With just a
handful of years as a coach, Bajin made a mark on the WTA Tour after helping
Osaka win the 2018 US Open and the 2019 Australian Open. The coach won the
inaugural WTA Coach of the Year award back in 2018 but parted ways with the
Japanese player shortly after her title in Melbourne.
Short-lived
partnership of Bajin with Parks
The
American won her first title at the 2023
Lyon Open and shortly after reached
the top 40 of the WTA Ranking for the first time in her career, which seemed
like the breakthrough of the talented player touted for years as one of the
great projects of American women's tennis.
However,
since then, she has not achieved good results again. The 23-year-old Parks has
experienced a sharp decline in 2024, with just 2 wins and 14 losses so far this
year. Her only two victories came at the recent Australian Open, where she
defeated Daria Snigur and Leylah Fernandez. Since then, she has suffered 13
consecutive defeats and is out of the top 130.
In March,
after seven consecutive losses, the American turned to coach Sascha Bajin with
the goal of improving her results. Her next tournaments were in
Indian Wells
and the Miami Open, and she was eliminated in the first round of the qualifiers
in both events.
Alycia Parks won her only title at the 2023 Lyon Open after defeating the local favorite Caroline Garcia by 7-6, 7-5.
Recently,
Bajin confirmed that he is no longer working with Alycia Parks due to
differences in their working methods: "Just a little update since I have
received a few messages in the past weeks. Alycia and I aren’t working together
anymore since a while. We split after Miami,” he wrote on his Instagram
stories.
“She’s a
super sweet girl off court but I think we just couldn’t agree or had the same
vision when it comes to work. I wish her nothing but the best and hope that she
can find her success soon again,” Bajin added.