Dearth Of Female Coaches in World Tennis

In 2012, Victoria Azarenka secured the world no. 1 in women’s tennis. In an interview about the same, she credited her success to her female coach, who had signed up with her on a consulting basis. Azarenka was one of the few players to have a female coach. Which begs the question, is there a severe lack of female coaches?

It’s noteworthy, because in professional women’s tennis — the leading women’s sport based on number of events and broadcast market share — female coaches are more the exception than the rule. “There’s a lot of women playing tennis, so I’m not sure why there aren’t more women coaching,” says Celia Slater, co-director of the non-profit Alliance for Women Coaches.

The topic made a few headlines in December, when Judy Murray accepted the position of Great Britain Fed Cup team captain. Murray, who once coached tennis player sons Andy and Jamie, told BBC, “I think we’re pretty much outnumbered about 10 to 1 male coaches to female coaches on the performance side of the game, and it’s something I would very much like to try to rectify.”

Other than Martina Hingis’ informal relationship with Sabine Lisicki, no-one in the WTA Top 20 is currently coached by a woman. And Mikhail Kukushkin and Denis Istomin are incredibly rare on the ATP tour in being coached by their wife and mother respectively.

“I’ve coached Tim Mayotte and a couple of others, but nobody ever asks us,” King told me on a visit to this week’s event in Indian Wells. “It’s a big mistake because we are a great resource, and they should ask. Nobody ever comes to me and says ‘Will you help me with my game?’ any more. The last one to ask me to help was Martina Navratilova when she was playing her last few years of singles.”

The ATP and the WTA had jointly started a four-day training course for players interested in various post-tennis careers, including coaching. Graduates can receive coaching certification. Jidkova attended the course, as did Iroda Tulyaganova, who coaches Akgul Amanmuradova. Other attendees, such as Sarah Borwell and Courtney Nagle, coach but not on the pro circuit.

Considering the fact that the decision to hire someone as a coach is entirely the players’, it seems as if even women are not very fond of hiring other women as their coaches.

Serena Williams,  in an interview with Nick McCarvel special for USA Today, said she welcomes the presence of Davenport and Navratilova on the tour: “I’m a big fan of Martina and especially Lindsay. I think it would be really good to see them on tour, bring their expertise and their knowledge back to tennis.”

Perhaps the trend of present stars hiring former stars will spark the rise of female coaches for WTA players.