"The player who impressed me the most is the one I coached the least": Riccardo Piatti was left particularly impressed by Maria Sharapova

Retired tennis star Maria Sharapova has been heaped with praise by her former coach, Riccardo Piatti, who claims the former World No.1 was the most impressive player he had ever coached.

Piatti has worked with a cadre of talented tennis players including Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner and Milos Raonic. Therefore, Sharapova earning that praise indicates she must have really stood out from his previous students. The Russian tennis star had an amazing career, capturing the World No.1 ranking while winning five Gran Slam singles titles before retiring in 2020.

In a recent interview with TV Monaco, the Italian coach spoke about his experience with coaching Sharapova during the tail end of her career.

"Unfortunately, the player who impressed me the most is the one I coached the least," said Piatti. "I trained her for about ten months. It is a woman, Maria Sharapova. I mainly trained men, Novak Djokovic, Ivan Ljubicic and so on. But with Sharapova it was really very special because she was about to end her career and she wanted to know another side of tennis.

"I had the opportunity to work with her and honestly we spent ten, eleven months together, during which I was able to appreciate her way of thinking. She has priorities and she knows them very well. She is very dedicated to her work.

"There was a lot of affinity with her and with her entire team. Unfortunately we didn't get results, which is a little strange because she's the only player I didn't get good results with, but she's the one I felt most comfortable with."