Rennae Stubbs has reacted to Iga Swiatek’s decision to hire Wim Fisette as her new coach.
The World number two has been through a turbulent period since her US Open quarter-final exit in September.
Swiatek withdrew from the China Open due to personal reasons and did not compete in Wuhan as she underwent some changes in her team.
The biggest change for Swiatek was splitting with her coach of three years Tomasz Wiktorowski and replacing him with Wim Fissette, the former coach of Naomi Osaka.
Following an excellent clay court season in which she won the Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros titles, Iga Swiatek began to find things more challenging.
She has not won a title since then, and suffered an early defeat at Wimbledon, a comprehensive straight sets loss to Aryna Sabalenka in Cincinnati and Swiatek failed to win the Olympic gold medal.
In October Swiatek decided it was time for a coaching change and Rennae Stubbs thinks she has made the right decision and explained why.
“What do I think about how it’s going to go? I think it will go great because Wim will come in with new ideas and new freshness, he’s a lot more upbeat and positive than Thomas,” she said on self-titled Rennae Stubbs podcast.
“I thought Thomas was very dour. I was like dude, you have to make life better or find some joy on the tennis court or working with Iga, because Iga clearly when she is out on the court gets very stressed and all the things you see, you have to be able to monitor that. That’s where I think women coaches can be better in those situations. “
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Fissette is an experienced coach and he has been in the corner of some of the game’s best players.
He coached Osaka to Grand Slam glory and Fissette aims to do the same with Swiatek by continuing her dominance on clay and achieving better results on quicker surfaces.
“The main goal will be this, as everyone wants to see Iga reigning on the clay, the fans place her as the queen of this surface,” Fissette told Eurosport.
“Obviously, having success in the other Grand Slams is also a fundamental objective, perhaps achieving a higher level of comfort on faster surfaces.
“However, it is not easy to be successful on clay, play so many matches in a few weeks, and then make that transition to grass,” he explained.
“It is necessary to feel comfortable on grass, trust your game plan and movement. We will try different methods until we find success there.”