The Australian Darren Cahill was voted the best tennis coach 2023 on the ATP tour together with his colleague Simone Vagnozzi. Novak Djokovic’s coach Goran Ivanisevic, on the other hand, had to surprisingly admit defeat – to the dismay of former French Open winner Nikola Pilic.
Nikola Pilic accompanied tennis superstar Novak Djokovic’s career from the ground up. It was the now 84-year-old who trained the Serb as a youth player. Interesting: At that time, Nikola Pilic also trained the Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, who now works as Novak Djokovic’s coach.
Together, the duo appeared in all four Grand Slam finals in 2023, of which Djokovic won three. He now has an incredible 24 Grand Slam titles and was also able to win the ATP Finals in Turin for the seventh time. No less impressive: The 36-year-old has been number one in the world rankings for over 400 weeks in his career.
“How far can this go?!”
According to his former companion Nikola Pilic, it would be completely understandable that Djokovic’s current coach Ivanisevic would win the prize for the best coach on the ATP tour. “Janik Sinner is a good player, but he hasn’t won a Grand Slam. And now his coach, the Australian Darren Cahill, gets the trophy as best coach, not Goran? So how far can this go?!” he said in the Interview with Vecernji Novosti.
Djokovic had already spoken out shortly after the ATP’s announcement, and he couldn’t resist a little swipe on Instagram: “Congratulations to Darren and Simone for a great season with Jannik. Goran, I think we have to win four out of four Slams win so maybe (just maybe) you can win Coach of the Year.”
Ivanisevic recognized Djokovic’s talent early on
Meanwhile, Nikola Pilic remembered that Goran Ivanisevic had already recognized Novak Djokovic’s talent as an active player: “Ivanisevic came to me in 2000 with eight kilograms too much. We started to lose pounds. I was supposed to for a week Playing with Goran from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Novak was there too. He was exactly 14 years old. And Goran was a three-time Wimbledon finalist. I told him to hit balls with the little one with black hair for five minutes. They played 23 Minutes. It’s a true story. During all that time, Novak didn’t send a single ball into the net.”
Ivanisevic then approached Pilic and said: “This little guy could be something!”