Seasoned coach Sergi Bruguera joins Maria Sakkari's team ahead of the Olympics

Maria Sakkari has started working with a new coach as she heads towards the Olympic Games in the coming weeks representing Greece. This after she quickly split from David Witt after only a few months as a tandem.

With Witt who was formerly the coach of Jessica Pegula, Sakkari starred in the Sunshine Double reaching the final and semi-final at Indian Wells and Miami and didn't reach any less than a Last 16 during normal tournaments.

But she decided to split with him after she lost in the first round of the French Open to Varvara Gracheva. She finally broke her Grand Slam duck at Wimbledon but was defeated in the third round by Emma Raducanu 6-2, 6-3 in a pretty poor loss for the Greek.

She has been searching for answers and has added a former coach of Alexander Zverev and Arthur Fils to her team in Sergi Bruguera in a switch from coaching ATP to WTA players. He is a former World No.3 in singles and holds winning records over Roger Federer and Pete Sampras in his career.

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He also coached Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the latter half of his career between 2019 and 2022. Zverev was for a year from 2022-2023 but they split due to creative differences and he recently split with Arthur Fils who has since seen an upturn in form ironically. She initially due to a real barren spell decided to split from long-time coach Tom Hill who was with her for six years.

A real force during their best success, Hill went on to work with American ace Peyton Stearns who has been a breakout star over the past year including winning Rabat recently albeit having a poor grass court season. But many wondered whether she was gearing up to bring him back only training with a hitting partner at Wimbledon. But that doesn't seem to be the case with this latest appointment and a curious one at that.

Interestingly supposedly Bruguera was also part of her team on a trial basis at the start of the year so she has moved to make that at least for now more permanent. But many quipped that she has to solve mental issues before a new coach after failing at Grand Slams a lot in recent years and only winning once at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open since 2022.

Vicky Georgatou

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Maria Sakkari has started working with Sergi Bruguera.

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