Australian coach Roger Rasheed says that he is interested in coaching Nick Kyrgios, who split with his coach before Wimbledon but was helped by Lleyton Hewitt during the hard-court season.
Rasheed, the former coach of Jo Wilfried Tsonga, Gael Monfils and Grigor Dimitrov, has not coached any player since he stopped working with Dimitrov after Wimbledon.
At Wimbledon in 2014 he made his breakthrough on the world stage when he upset Rafa Nadal in four sets in the fourth round to reach the quarter finals. Kyrgios lost to Milos Raonic in the quarter finals in four sets.
Kyrgios started the 2015 season with a quarter final at the Australian Open where he became the first teenager to reach two Grand Slam quarter finals since Roger Federer in 2001. Kyrgios recovered from two sets down and faced a match point in the fourth set to beat Andreas Seppi in five sets to become the first Australian player to reach the quarter finals at Melborne Park since Lleyton Hewitt in 2005. Kyrgios reached the second Grand Slam quarter final of his career. In the quarter finals he lost against Andy Murray in three sets. During 2015 the 20-year-old Aussie player reached the Estoril final where he lost agianst Richard Gasquet. In Madrid he upset Roger Federer in the second round after saving two match points in the tie-break of the final set before losing against John Isner in three sets. In the next two Grand Slam tournaments Kyrgios lost to Andy Murray in the third round at the Roland Garros and to Richard Gasquet in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
“If a player with a high skill set is willing to commit and wants to be a player in the game, my coaching process delivers. You have got to be willing to buy into that, buy into actually wanting to be a great player. Obviously Nick is a different character. He’s flamboyant, and you are never going to take away the natural flair of the athlete but it’s about how you can actually bring that and mould that into a product that can legimately be a force on the world stage”, said Rasheed to the Sydney Herald Morning.
Lleyton Hewitt, who now works as the Australian Davis Cup coach, will help Australian players but he will not be anyone’s exclusive coach.
“I am a mentor to all those guys and I will be helping them all. I get on with Nick Kyrgios. He knows I have got his back”, told Hewitt to the Brisbane Courier Mail.
