Will Uncle Toni Help Auger Aliassime Win a Grand Slam Someday?

No, he won’t. It’s one thing to coach Rafael Nadal, who’s one in a million, and another to coach Auger Aliassime. Perhaps one day, Tony Nadal might help Carlos Alcaraz, who seems ready to break through.

Factors Influencing Player Success with Coaches

While we can’t predict the future, it’s easy to see how past relationships have worked out between players and their coaches. A great coach will end up with a track record of helping more than one player reach the highest level, while a great player will make an average coach look like a genius. Personal relationships play a huge part in determining whether the coach’s ideas will get through. In addition, the desire of the player to improve has to exceed his ego and past success.

Examples of Great Coaches

Brad Gilbert

If we look at Brad Gilbert, he was able to turn around Andre Agassi’s career and get him to rank 1. Then he coached Andy Roddick to his only major win and a top 1 ranking. However, Roddick’s father had a problem with Gilbert, and Roddick stuck with his father. I remember wondering why Roddick’s game changed from the dynamic, aggressive all-court game he had in 2003 to a pusher with a big serve who lost to clay court player Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon in 2007. Roddick came back a little when he switched over to Larry Stefanki but that was more about improving his fitness than changing his game.

British Tennis Association (LTA)

The LTA paid for Gilbert to work with Andy Murray after the Brit had dropped in the rankings due to an injury. While Gilbert helped Murray back up the rankings, they did not get along well. When Murray regained the 11 ranking, he said he could pay his way and formed his own team.

Goran Ivanisevic

The big-serving Croatian became the coach of Marin Cilic and within a year, he won Cilic’s only U.S. Open title in 2014. They parted ways after Wimbledon in 2016. Ivanisevic then signed on as Djokovic’s coach in 2019. The results have been impressive as Djokovic turned his serve from a good 5.5 aces per match career average to a great 14.7 aces per match at the 2020 Australian Open. This equates to about 8.8 aces in a three-set match. Without Ivanisevic’s direction on the serve and his push to turn Djokovic into a more aggressive player who could finish at the net, there is no way the Serbian 1 could have pulled out all those close matches at the majors.

Ivan Lendl

Lendl’s success with Andy Murray is noteworthy because he did it twice with the same player, guiding him to his first two majors in 2012 and 2013, and then separating for a couple of years because Lendl didn’t want to travel as much before reuniting in 2016. By the end of 2016, Murray had won his third major and had the greatest year of his career, ending it as the world No. 1.

Ivan Ljubicic

Ljubicic had moderate success with Milos Raonic from 2013 to 2015. He was the perfect coach to help Roger Federer stage an incredible comeback after he was sidelined for six months with injuries in 2016. Ljubicic helped Federer become more solid off his high backhand and encouraged Federer to attack the ball on second serves. Clearly, Ljubicic was the one guy who had a chance to get through to Federer.

Analysis of Uncle Toni’s Potential for Auger Aliassime

Examining Uncle Toni’s potential as a coach for Auger Aliassime, I don’t know if he’s a coach at the same caliber as the guys I mentioned above. What I know from reading excerpts of Nadal’s biography is that Uncle Toni might have been arrested for child abuse based on the way he pushed Rafa as a child. I won’t go into details, but if locking a kid in a closet as a form of peak performance training is involved, sports psychologists would disagree.

Uncle Toni, as a fitness fanatic, might help Aliassime become match-tough. That much was clear in his wonderful run to the U.S. Open semi-finals. However, the young Canadian has a very mechanical game based on using his speed and length. He doesn’t have much variety or the ability to change pace to throw off an opponent who gets grooved against him.

When we look at Nadal’s career, most of the big adjustments in his style came after his body started to break down in 2014. Nadal brought in former No. 1 Carlos Moya in 2016 and became more aggressive and varied in his play, resulting in his wonderful comeback that led him to the world No. 1 ranking in 2017 and six more major titles.

Conclusion

A great coach can make a huge difference in a player’s career, but it requires compatible personalities, the player’s desire to put learning over ego, and the special qualities a particular coach can bring to a particular player. In Uncle Toni’s case, he is a former professional soccer player who understands fitness, fights every second, and plays under pressure. This can take a young physically gifted player a long way.

However, Uncle Toni did not develop Rafa’s never-seen-before 3400 rpm topspin forehand. Nadal just did something no other player had ever done and brought a level of fighting spirit I hadn’t seen since Jimmy Connors. I don’t see how his tennis expertise will broaden Auger Aliassime’s game technically or tactically. For that reason, I don’t think Uncle Toni will be the coach who takes Auger Aliassime to the promised land.