Tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou recently held a Q&A session on social media. Over the years, Mouratoglou has coached notable stars in the sport, most recently the four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, with whom he parted ways in 2025.
During the Q&A session, a fan asked for his thoughts on Osaka’s game and playing style. Mouratoglou replied:
“I think it’s thanks to the fact that we stopped that she could play that well. I’ll explain why, I think we did a great job in terms of progress, I think her level of play at the end of our collaboration was way higher than one year before, but I think that it was difficult for her to play with me being in the box, she was feeling a lot of pressure and tension, I think due to the fact that I coached Serena [Williams] for so long, but, that was my job to find a way to take this pressure off and I didn’t do well.”
“She actually said publicly that it was too much pressure for her to have me as a coach; she said it at the press conference in Roland-Garros. And the fact that I was not in the box, she felt more free to play, and as she was ready physically, as she was ready in her game, she could express her tennis way better,” Mouratoglou added.
Patrick Mouratoglou Reflects on How He Coached Serena Williams
During the same Q&A session, another fan asked the Frenchman about his approach to coaching Serena, even when she was at the peak of her career, playing flawless tennis.
“Anyone can progress. No. 1 in the world, greatest player of all time, that’s what amazing about tennis! It’s that you can always improve,” Mouratoglou replied.
“When I started with Serena, ofcourse she was already great, she had 13 Grand Slam titles, but I thought there were a lot of things she could improve. As she wanted to improve as well, we could do the work. My goal was to know that she had made progress just by having better statistics: higher % of wins, more titles, more Grand Slams per year,” he added.
“She had a great serve, she had a great forehand, she had a great backhand, she had a great return, but all of those things could progress! You can have a higher % of first serves, you can hit more serve winners, your second serve can do more damage, in some situations the forehand was great, in some others maybe not, so we could progress there…. It’s all about efficiency,” Mouratoglou concluded.
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