Former world tennis number one Karolína Plíšková will be coached by Leoš Friedl. The 2001 Wimbledon mixed doubles winner will replace the German Sascha Bajin, with whom the Czech player ended her cooperation last week after twenty months.
Friedl had already worked briefly with Plíšková a year ago. “Of course, I am very much looking forward to working with Kája. We already have an excellent experience together from last year’s tour in the USA, where we got to know each other,” said the forty-five-year-old coach in a press release.
Plíšková will fly with the new team on a tour of American concrete on July 27. The 30-year-old, who is training in Marbella with new British fitness coach Jez Green, has plans to start in San Jose, Toronto, Cincinnati and the US Open.
She also completed this part of the season with Friedl last year after Bajin did not get a visa to stay in the USA. Under his guidance, she played nine matches, winning seven of them, and was in the semifinals in Cincinnati and the quarterfinals of the US Open.
“It is a challenge for me and at the same time a great responsibility. Our primary goal will be to regain the lost playing and mental well-being. I will certainly not want to interfere with Karolína’s tennis, her style is successful, thanks to it she was also world number one. But we will focus on a few specific elements and of course we still have the highest goals,” plans Friedl. He most recently coached Slovak doubles player Filip Polášek and led him to the doubles title at the Australian Open last year.
Bajin was Pliskova’s seventh coach since 2014. The last tournament she played under his guidance was Wimbledon. On London grass, she was eliminated in the 2nd round and did not defend her participation in last year’s final. The latter was her most notable act during her collaboration with Bajin. Under his guidance, she did not win a single tournament and this year she is rather struggling after breaking her hand during the winter training.
Due to an injury, Plíšková only entered the season in March. Since then, she won only nine out of twenty matches on the WTA circuit. She won more than one match in only two tournaments, her biggest success being the semi-final in Strasbourg. She is ranked 15th in the world ranking.
After the US Open, Plíšková plans to play two tournaments in Japan. After that, she would like to present herself in Ostrava in October and would like to represent the Czechia at the Billie Jean King Cup final in Glasgow in November.
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