Every tennis offseason is sure to feature coaching changes and this one certainly did not waste any time getting the carousel spinning.
Milos Raonic announced last week that week that he is splitting from coach Ivan Ljubicic. Raonic worked with Ljubicic for more than two years and made a debut appearance at the World Tour Finals in 2014. The Canadian’s 2015 campaign got off to a promising start but a foot injury derailed his second half of the season and he fell to No. 14 in the world.
“I’d like to thank Ivan Ljubicic for the tremendous amount of support, knowledge and understanding he has given me,” Raonic wrote on Instagram. “The decision has been made that we will not continue our professional relationship in the coming year, we will remain close friends and I would like to wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
Meanwhile, Borna Coric is no longer working with Tomas Johansson. The Croat, who is ranked 44th in the world at just 19 years old, formed a partnership this spring.
Fellow teenager Elias Ymer parted ways with Galo Blanco. Ymer is not as far along in his development as Coric but is still up to 137th in the rankings at 19 years old. Blanco also formerly worked with Raonic.
I wanna Thx @galo_blanco and #angel for this 7 months and good luck with your new projects.
— Eli Ymer (@eliasymer) November 18, 2015
Not clear who decided to make the break. I suspect Ivan.
As I said, look for Ljubicic to coach Coric in the near future.
Much better upside.
Ljubicic improved Raonic’s movement a lot so that was an achievement. Raonic didn’t actually qualify for the WTF last year so Ivan can’t take credit for that as Raonic only replaced Rafa who pulled out.