Daria Kasatkina is the latest player to split from her coach on the WTA tour as she splits with Belgian Philippe Dehaes.
The world number 13 decided to split from her coach Philippe Dehaes after a poor start to the 2019 season having only won two matches.
This coaching split is the latest in a whole carousel of changes which has even included the world number one Naomi Osaka splitting from her coach, Sascha Bajin.
In a statement on Instagram Kasatkina expressed her gratitude to Dehaes who lead her to the top ten and won her the Kremlin Cup last year.
However after losing five of her seven matches so far the Russian concluded that it was time to move on “It is with sadness that I am announcing that myself and Philippe Dehaes are parting ways after a very successful partnership,” Kasatkina said.
“I owe Philippe a huge amount for the success I’ve had over the past two years since we started working together but after deciding I need to take control and responsibility for my own tennis, I felt I needed to do this alone and take a break from working with Philippe but as he has a family and children to support, I understand this is not possible for him and it’s best we go our separate way.
“Who knows what the future holds, never say never. I’d just like to go on record as saying thank you again to Philippe, you’ll always mean a lot to me and I wish you the very best. Thanks for everything coach, you will always have a special place in my heart.”
The Belgian coach was known for his motivational on-court coaching timeouts especially his ‘Russian Wall’ comment in Moscow last October.
"Dasha, you’re gonna do it, I swear."
Not all heroes wear capes…
Here is the coaching of Philippe when Dasha was down a set and a break.
It certainly helped her to come back and take the win 👊🏼 pic.twitter.com/rYqzpoytTp— Daria Kasatkina FP (@kasatkinafp) October 17, 2018
It will now be interesting where Kasatkina goes from here considering she has final points to defend at Indian Wells in a couple weeks time.
The tournament in the Californian desert is the next tournament for the Russian, which starts on the 6th of March although Kasatkina won’t play her first match until the 8th of March.
