Famous right arm of Nick Bolletieri, within his academy in Bradenton, for more than 30 years, Gabriel Jaramillo has seen some of the greatest champions of this sport: from Agassi to Sharapova via Courier, Becker, Seles, Kournikova, Haas, Nishikori, Sampras, Rios, Jankovic and Pierce.
Questioned by our colleagues from Puntodebreakthe Colombian coach returned to a defining moment in the career of Maria Sharapova when she took a double bubble by Marion Bartoli at the age of 13.
“She was a special player, since she was 9 years old. She seemed like a harmless kid…until she took the racket, then she showed her champion mentality. She always hit the ball with a lot of confidence. I remember when I was 14, I saw her lose in the Orange Bowl to a Bartoli who stayed on the service line the whole game, without backing down. She lost 6–0 and 6–0, that was in December. When January came around, we met at the first training session and I told him to practice serving, so the same thing wouldn’t happen again. She remained serious and replied: ‘I’m not training to play against Bartoli, I’m not interested. I’m training to play against Serena Williams’. At that time Serena was already number 1, imagine when she beat her in the Wimbledon final at 18, she had been playing this game in her head for at least five years. »
Published on Wednesday April 13, 2022 at 10:44
