Sascha Bajin on Naomi Osaka: “There Were Some Differences”

Naomi Osaka had announced her split with her coach Sascha Bajin in February. The announcement came just after when the pair completed their back-to-back grand slam titles at the Australian Open 2019. While the reason for the split was not clear until Bajin finally Opened up on the reason behind the split.

Partnering with Sascha Bajin, Naomi Osaka jumped from the world no. 72 to world no.1 on the WTA leaderboards. The pair also conquered two grand slam titles but surprisingly, the duo had broken abruptly. Sasha Bajin was also awarded the coach of the year award for 2018 season for his achievement with Naomi Osaka.

There were many speculations about why the successful pair had decided to split. But after 3 months, Sascha Bajin finally opened up about the reason for the split with Naomi Osaka in an interview, quoted by Yahoo.

He said, “Look, to be honest, there were some differences. It was her decision. I respect that. No matter what. If there was a success or not success whatever the case if she feels like it’s better to go then that’s her decision.”

Before coaching Naomi Osaka, Sascha had also worked with Caroline Wozniacki. Bajin also spoke about his relations with his old partner Caroline Wozniacki. He said, “Same as with Caroline Wozniacki, we had a great year with seven finals and we had a deal for a year and she didn’t want to continue. It’s ok, I respect her decision. We’re all still friends and we see each other.”

Sascha Bajin started to coach Kristina Mladenovic after splitting with Naomi Osaka. Bajin was also asked about why he decided to start coaching Kristina Mladenovic. He replied, “I don’t want to sound like I’m cocky or something. But I don’t start working with players if I don’t truly believe that they can beat anybody they play with.”

Sasha Bajin looks confident about Kristina Mladenovic performance. He said, “Given this time that it is on the WTA Tour when you had 18 tournaments, 18 winners, Kiki could be more than one of them. For me, I don’t want to say we’re going to win this, we’re going to win that. But knowing now what I’ve seen with her in practice, I told her, “look we go to tournaments, I want you to understand that we go pre-book our flights for Sunday”.

“I don’t want her to even think about maybe quarters or something, no. We go there to win, we take one round at a time, we respect every opponent but at the same time there is nobody she needs to fear,” added Bajin.