Tursunov on shifting to work with Bencic after Raducanu split: "She didn’t really need to do a lot of convincing, the commitment was staggering"

Dmitry Tursunov revealed in an interview that Bencic did not need to convince him too much as he was already impressed by the Swiss player.

Bencic had a strong year last year after failing in the first year of the pandemic and she followed it up with another strong year. Not too many trophies were won in that period and that's why she contacted Tursunov as the Russian was able to help Kontaveit with a similar problem.

Kontaveit was a very solid player but lacked consistency enough to win trophies and under Tursunov she changed that and became one of the most consistent players winning several trophies. When asked how she convinced him to take the job, Tursunov said:

“She didn’t really need to do a lot of convincing!. She called me and asked me if I was available and if I was interested in working with her. I told her that right now I’m working with Emma so that was obviously out of the question, but that I’d let her know if something was to change. And then when with Emma we couldn’t come to an agreement, then that’s when I called Belinda. I said it looks like I’m available so we met, we talked, and then we just decided to start working together.”

He added:

“With Belinda, her approach was very different: there was no trial, she just said, ‘Listen, I’ve read stuff about you, I’ve seen how you work, I want to work with you. So, what’s it going to take?’ After two or three days of conversations, we made a decision. So, in that sense, it was much easier. The commitment was staggering.”