Coco Gauff goes full Emma Raducanu and announces split from coach after just one year | Tennis | Sport

American tennis sensation Coco Gauff has split from her coach Diego Moyano. The Argentinian, who played professionally from 1997 until 2005, started training Gauff at the start of the 2022 season in which she produced some stellar performances under his watch.

Alongside Moyano, the 19-year-old prodigy reached her maiden Grand Slam singles final at the French Open and also entered the top ten of the WTA rankings.

After going their separate ways, the 48-year-old – a winner of four ATP Challenger singles titles – took to social media to announce that he had split with Gauff due to personal reasons. Put his class to good use, he labelled the Atalanta native a “real champion on and off the court”.

Taking to Instagram, he penned: “After a fantastic year where we achieve many great things I have to stop working with Coco due to my personal reasons. Thank you so much for this amazing year plenty of memories.

“It is really a pleasure to work with you @cocogauff a real champion on and off the court. Want to thank Gauff’s family for the trust and support along this year. You guys have been amazing. And want to thanks as well the team that worked hard with me to achieve the goals.”

Gauff also took to social media, as she penned to her 274K followers on Twitter: “Thanks for an incredible year on tour together and a lot of great memories with the team. I hope you enjoy some quality time at home. As you always say, time to keep building.”

Their split comes after Emma Raducanu’s former coach, Dmitry Tursunov, revealed he parted ways with the former US Open champion because he feared he would “not be given enough time” to work with her.

The Russian, who reached as high as world No 20 in 2006, revealed in October last year: “We didn’t agree on the terms and there were some red flags that just couldn’t be ignored.”

During an interview with TennisMajors.com, Tursunov added: “I was walking away from Emma regardless of whether there was another [player] available or not.

“Our trial period was over at the US Open but I stuck around, trying to see if there was going to be a way to impress the team. I really wanted to make it work.”

But Tursunov was full of praise for world No 68 Raducanu, as he concluded: “She’s absolutely great, she’s a hard worker and she doesn’t think or act like she’s a superstar.

“So I really loved working with her, and I really wanted to make it work. It was a very difficult decision for me to walk away from a player that I like and respect.”