Qinwen Zheng, Naomi Osaka, and Coco Gauff: Here’s What You Should Know About the Coaching Mess That Ensued

Coaches are a huge part of any tennis player’s professional life! Their contribution can potentially make or break their careers. This year, there has been a lot of confusion and curiosity regarding tennis coaches drawing connections and skipping from one to another, whether it be Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, or even Chinese number 1, Qinwen Zheng. As the respective coaches of these players started to go back to their old teams, these WTA stars found themselves in a cyclical mess.

Any tennis fan who has been closely connected to the sport knows how these three tennis players are connected through their coaches. But now let’s take a deeper dive at the story of how all three of them are in the same thread when it comes to their coaching lineup.

The tennis coaches mix-up between Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, and Qinwen Zheng

Last year, the 19-year-old American tennis player won her first Grand Slam title at the US Open. The victory would not have been possible without her coach, Pere Riba, who joined her just a few months before the hard court swing. While Pere Riba and Gauff’s team was able to succeed on the court, they were somewhere down the line, not ready to be there for each other for a longer time.

By the end of the year, during the WTA Finals, the 35-year-old Spanish tennis coach took to his Instagram account to announce how he would be parting ways with Gauff. He stated, “We did our best to keep our partnership going into the next year, but unfortunately, due to some personal and family health reasons on my side, I need to take a step back.”

But the bigger surprise is something else altogether. Do you know that before joining hands with the American tennis player, the Spanish coach was a part of Qinwen Zheng’s coaching team? And now, after splitting up with the 19-year-old, he has reunited with the 21-year-old Chinese tennis player to focus on her athletic career.

Interestingly, a few months before joining hands with Riba, Zheng split up with her coach, Wim Fissette, and got into a bigger controversy in terms of putting an end to their partnership. It all started when the latter allegedly broke the terms of their contract by unknowingly terminating their partnership.

After China won a gold medal at the Asian Games in September 2023, Zheng made it clear that Fissette had ended their partnership and did not even travel to China because of the same concern. But there was a bigger concern, as the event connected the Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka’s comeback to the coaching mess that already had two tennis players in the pond.

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How did Naomi Osaka become a part of the coaching mess?

While the Chinese world number one was quite upset regarding how her coach disappointed her and finished their partnership on such a difficult note. There were rumors at first that he was going back to the four-time Grand Slam champion as she was stepping up for her comeback.

Consequently, as the comeback news of Osaka got through, she rehired Wim Fissette and even got performance coach Florian Zitzelsberger back in her team. To put it simply, what Riba did to Gauff, was similar to what Fissette did to Zheng. As Riba left the team of the American to join hands with Zheng, Fissette went on to rejoin team Osaka.

However, after listening to the whole coaching mess-up, what are your thoughts on these three players juggling between coaches? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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