Many of the new tennis coaches and players might know Sven Groeneveld from the great success he has had with WTA players. Yet, those that have been in the tennis business know Sven has been great coach and overall tennis architect for both ATP and WTA players. Sven wanted to share with the readers a bit from his time with Mario Ancic.
THE BADGE CHRONICLES
“Mario Ancic, former top 10 player from Croatia.
Many people consider me a women’s coach but maybe through sharing my stories through “The Badge Chronicles” it will shine some light on my 30-year career on tour. In late 2002 I was asked, by the manager of Mario (Olivier van Lindonk), if I would be interested to work with a talented 19 year old, 195 cm (6.5ft) from Croatia. I had heard a lot about him and how hard he worked and how dedicated he was. Mario and his brother Ivica (also former player) traveled together when Bob Brett stopped his work with Mario.
So, when I joined they had already experienced high level coaching and I had something to live up to. At that time Mario had moved up the rankings and was around 160 in world when we started working. Our first 4 tournaments were 2 challenger wins a 4th round at the Australian Open and another at an ATP Challenger Tour winning and beating Rafael Nadal in the Final. We had a great run and worked very good together through out the year (reaching top 70) but I could not live up to the 45 week a year working request from the father and we had to end the relationship.
However, together with his agent we found a great replacement and Mario started working with Rohan Goetzke (who had previously developed Richard Kraijicek into a Wimbledon champion) and helped Mario Into the top 10. Mario is now a lawyer in NY and Ivica runs a great academy in split Croatia! The rest is history.”
*All the information for this article was attained through explicit permission from Sven Groeneveld to be published on 10sBalls.com – no lifting or reusing is permitted.