Behind the success of Garbiñe Muguruza there is a shadow, which is projected by Conchita Martínez’s long experience: trainer, friend and confidant. A kind of guardian angel for the tennis player, who finds not only the advisor and the technique, but also the roadmap. Two years ago, when the Masters Cup champion had become entangled, she had dropped to 29th place on the ranking and her career had taken on a dangerous drift after two years lost in a labyrinth and the brawl with the Frenchman Sam Sumyk, predecessor on the bench, the heads of the multinational IMG that manage the player’s professional path met and decided. Rudder stroke: final point to the Gaul, call to the Aragonese. And the twist came.
Faced with the emergency, “who better than her”, 49 years old, appears in the nineties and a reference for Muguruza, whom she met as soon as she left her home and moved to Barcelona, when she was 6 years old. There the girl grew up, the adolescent developed and the woman was forged, the champion of these days. At his side, always in some way, Martínez, who knows like few others the strengths and the Achilles, the ins and outs of a tennis player difficult to decipher, surely unclassifiable. After a brief rehearsal with Anabel Medina in New York, by way of transition, the Aragonese – Wimbledon champion in 1994 and number two in 1995 – picked up the phone, heard the name and did not hesitate: if it’s Garbiñe, go ahead. Of course, with conditions. His script, his rules. And from there, get to work.
More work, better designed and high doses of empathy. A stone by stone reconstruction. Feelingsimply. The teacher already says: “On many occasions we do not need to speak, a small gesture or a glance is enough for us.”
The first step to re-float the number three in the world was dialogue, without overdoing it but necessary; regain your appetite and conviction, the desire to do something great again. Then came the technical phase, the reinforcement of the good (which is varied and a lot) and the polishing of those fields that needed scaffolding, in the case of mobility or the volley. Later the progressive remodeling of the team, new faces with the incorporation of the Argentine Adriana Forti (physiotherapist) and Santiago de Martino (physical trainer), and the Catalan Gemma Bes, a nutritionist who also works for Rafael Nadal’s academy. And to close the circle, an exercise of patience and faith, because the plan was projected in the medium term and results were not the priority. The will ahead.
“Bricks well laid”
“I know what the tennis player feels, and that is an extra,” Conchita explained at the beginning of last year, when the rebound was already appreciable and the attitude and confidence of his girl were very different. Thus, Muguruza reached the final of the Australian Open, against Sofia Kenin, but then came the brake of the pandemic. “When I returned I tried to maintain the same dynamic,” explains the winner of the Guadalajara Masters, who in her day, 2017, also had to use Martinez to tackle Wimbledon and hand in hand they triumphed in the sacred grass of London, second big on the record. The nexus was cathartic.
Even so, the rude Sumyk continued, but both met again in 2018 for a month and a half in a fleeting alliance that did not crystallize because the French interpreted the intervention of the Aragonese as an interference, and she really wanted to mold Muguruza strictly under her codes . With the French down, his arrival purified the atmosphere of the team and re-impelled the tennis player, as comfortable on a day-to-day basis as required.
“The road is going to be long, you have to lay bricks from below and build well,” insisted the coach, confident that sooner or later there would be another explosion, located in Mexican lands and in a year in which Muguruza has enjoyed “more than ever ”, in the“ best moment ”of her career, always feeling competitive and also sure that she would end up catching the reward. First it was released in Dubai (WTA 500), then it celebrated Chicago (500) and in Guadalajara the historic masterpiece bell sounded.
“At the end of the day, she has gone through all this and is the best option,” says Garbiñe. “If the tennis player is good, just order her,” Martínez commented in an interview with this newspaper. “Garbi is the dream for any coach,” he said in another. “Tennis players give few opportunities for a woman to train them,” the coach expanded in the first talk when she was guarding the Czech Karolina Pliskova, the same one who muddied the Spanish take off in this Masters and who in the end did not manage to pass the phase of groups, yes Muguruza. Conchita, there is no doubt, chose the winning card.
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