“She’ll handle the tactics”: Jasmine Paolini confirms Sara Errani will join her coaching team in 2026

Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani have established themselves as one of the most successful doubles teams on the WTA Tour over the past two seasons. Their results include an Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024, a Roland Garros title in 2025, and consecutive WTA 1000 trophies in Rome. Their recent interview on SuperTennis provided an overview of their progress and outlined how their partnership has developed during this period.

Both players currently occupy the world No. 3 position in the doubles rankings, trailing only the top-ranked team of Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend. They have also qualified for the WTA Finals in both 2024 and 2025, maintaining a steady presence among the elite teams.

The association was created precisely with the Olympic Games in mind. Errani, a multi-champion of Grand Slam tournaments in doubles, approached Paolini to seek a partnership facing Paris 2024. “The Olympics are a bit forgotten in tennis, but when she asked me to play doubles to try to qualify, I said ‘okay’,” commented Paolini about their beginnings playing together. “We started playing and I saw we were doing well, and then she gave me incredible moments.”

She added that the significance of the medal became fully clear only after the competition had ended. “When we won the medal, I understood its value in that moment. It’s totally different, it involves more people and more countries.”

The good results led Errani even to postpone her retirement. The Italian will turn 39 in April and her singles appearances have been sporadic and without great expectations for years now. However, her success in doubles has led her to extend her career – even longer than expected. “We’re still here, playing. I said I would retire if I won a medal, but we’re doing so well that it’s hard to stop.”

Their Olympic gold medal was a historic accomplishment for Italy, marking the country’s first tennis gold in doubles and completing Errani’s career Golden Slam in women’s doubles. The achievement positioned them as one of the most reliable teams across all surfaces and provided momentum heading into 2025. Their Roland Garros title the following season reinforced their status as a top pairing and demonstrated the consistency of their performance on clay.

Paolini noted that Rome holds particular importance for both players, given their individual and shared success at the tournament. “One of the biggest victories of my life, because it’s Rome, the tournament I used to go to as a kid asking for autographs,” commented the 2-time singles Grand Slam runner-up.

Errani highlighted the conditions that consistently suit their style and contribute to their strong results. “Playing in Rome, where I won with Roberta (Vinci), is always something special. Then there are tournaments where the conditions suit us: Doha, Rome, Beijing.”

While Errani continues to have doubts regarding when the end of her career will arrive, Paolini hopes to extend her great moment in singles, where she has had a couple of dream seasons, after finishing 2024 as world No. 4 and this season as world No. 8. She has two consecutive participations in the WTA Finals, two WTA 1000 titles, and led Italy to the last two Billie Jean King Cup titles. “In the last three years, I’ve grown as a player and as a person; I have clearer ideas on court. I always try to move forward and forgive myself. Tennis forgets quickly.”

Looking ahead, the team structure around Paolini will change slightly for the upcoming season, and Paolini announced that she will have her doubles partner Errani as part of her coaching staff. “I’ll have two people this year: Danilo Pizzorno and her, who will take care of the tactical part, which is on another level.”

In any case, Errani is not retired yet and they will continue playing doubles together throughout the season. In fact, they will be together again in a competition the first week at the United Cup, where Paolini will lead the Italians in singles alongside Flavio Cobolli, while Errani will wait for her opportunity for the eventual mixed doubles matches, in which she would partner with Andrea Vavassori – a partner with whom she won three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles.