After facing multiple disappointments on her journey back into the sport, Naomi Osaka seems determined to conclude the season on a high. The Japanese star has made changes to her coaching staff, as she has parted ways with Wim Fissette, and announced Serena Williams’ ex-coach, Patrick Mouratoglou as her new coach. The Frenchman has a proven record of guiding Williams to a record-breaking 23-Grand Slam titles, of which 10 came with his support. And Osaka seems to be harboring the same hopes for herself, as the duo marks the start of their collaboration at the Asian Championship without protected rankings.

Osaka would be entering the Wuhan Open, through qualifiers. The Japanese star has made it to the draw along with 27 other qualifiers, in hopes of entering the main draw. The main draw features, Sloane Stephens, Karolina Muchova, and Emma Raducanu among others. This also marks another chapter of hardships for the 4-time Grand Slam champion, as she couldn’t enter the main draw through protected rankings. However, as she goes through the qualifiers, she will be putting her collaboration with her new coach to the test.

How would it fare for Osaka? Could Mouratoglou get her out of the slump, like he did with Serena Williams after a slam-less year? Maybe/maybe not, nobody knows. But the Frenchman certainly knows his job. He once said, “As a coach, my job is to find chemistry with my players because, to be successful, they need to trust you completely. I always work to build that connection.”

While Mouratoglou had a great partnership with Serena, it doesn’t guarantee that his association with Osaka would prove to be equally fruitful and that the Japanese star would be able to replicate Williams’ feat. Not everyone believes that this partnership would prove fruitful for the Japanese anyway. Serena’s ex-coach, Rennae Stubbs, is one of them.

Rennae Stubbs doubts Patrick Mouratoglou’s credentials, as the Frenchman takes over as Naomi Osaka’s coach

Before even announcing her new partnership with Mouratoglou officially, Naomi Osaka gave fans a glimpse of her grueling training under the new coach. A video with the two of them training together in LA surfaced on social media and went viral, sparking rumors of their potential partnership. While the rumors eventually turned out to be true, Stubbs feels that something is a miss when it comes to the decorated coach. She leveraged the Simona Halep doping incident to make her point. 

Stubbs said “He has arguably f–ked up Simona Halep’s life, you know, with these incidents, with these, you know, allegations of who is the one that brought these people in that has, you know, put this stuff in her drinks, or whatever the hell, and she’s now, you know, had a two-year suspension. I mean, I don’t know. I’d be a little wary of having people around me that had those credentials.”

There are always two sides to a story and people will always have contrasting points of view. But despite Stubbs’ opinion, both Naomi Osaka and Patrick Mouratoglou would want to move ahead with positive energy into the Asian swing, with the hopes of Osaka ending the season with a title.