“Was Difficult to Work With”: Borna Coric Reflects on Frequent Coaching Changes Over His Career

Awarded the “ATP Star of Tomorrow”  in 2014, Borna Coric was predicted to be a future Grand Slam champion. Coric made headlines when he defeated Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals of the Swiss Indoors’2014 at age 17. However, the Croatian couldn’t capitalize on the impressive start and faltered in his way in the middle. To make matters worse, a knee injury in 2016 further dented his confidence.

During a recent interview, Coric talked about the way the lack of consistency in the coaching department led to frequent changes. He has had a long list of coaches and most of them have had short stints. Coric was coached by Zeljko Krajan during the start of his professional career. He then partnered with Thomas Johansson (2015), Miles Maclagan (2016), Ivica Ancic (2016-2017), Riccardo Piatti, Kristijan Schneider (2017-2019), Antonio Veić (2019), and finally his current coach Martin Stepanek.

“I am not going to deny it, I was difficult to work with before, high-maintenance if you like, and now I am more easy-going. But I really have never been type of guy that fires a coach after two first-round losses. Actually, looking back at all my coaches, only with one it was entirely up to me, where I felt we weren’t working well and I decided to end it.” said Coric.

The World No. 27 admitted that various issues cropped up with many coaches, ranging from personal problems on their side, disagreement on finances, or the coach not being able to travel with him for enough weeks.

Borna Coric’s resurgence

It has been a great year for Coric so far. He recorded his best result at any Grand Slam by reaching the quarterfinals of the US Open 2020. The 23-year-old ousted Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third round in an epic five-set match.

The Croatian reached the finals of the St. Petersburg Open yesterday but lost to Andrey Rublev in straight sets to finish to tournament as the runner-up for the second successive year. Coric, the two-time career titlist won his last title at the Halle Open in 2018 when he defeated Roger Federer in a thrilling three-set final.