“Up to 15 years old, she was very good in serving,” Jakovleva said. “It’s something mental probably now. The pain is gone, but she cannot find the right motion.”
‘I Never Wanted to Leave Riga’
There have been other challenges along the path to the top five, including financial issues. Though she is proudly Latvian, Ostapenko said she had received offers to represent other nations. But Jakovleva said her family was ultimately able to pay the tennis bills through its own savings, funding from friends and other private benefactors, a few commercial sponsors and the International Tennis Federation’s development fund.
Winning Roland Garros, with its first prize of 2.1 million euros ($2.46 million), has certainly increased her budget and her team. She has split from her longtime agent Ugo Colombini, who signed her at 13, to join the huge global agency WME-IMG and agent Max Eisenbud, who also represents Maria Sharapova. Ostapenko has hired the veteran coach David Taylor for 15 weeks this season, just as she worked with the Spanish player Anabel Medina Garrigues on a part-time basis when she won last year’s French Open.
But Jakovleva has remained a central figure, and for Ostapenko, having her mother as primary coach for most of her career has certainly helped the bottom line. She was able to remain based in Riga throughout her teens, unlike Gulbis and Sevastova, who both left Latvia to train at the Niki Pilic Tennis Academy near Munich.
“I never wanted to leave Riga. Never,” Ostapenko said. “I think I showed everybody you can practice at home and do everything to prepare well for winning good tournaments.”
Jakovleva said she often studied the coaching methods at foreign tennis academies when they were traveling for international competitions. Her conclusion: Her daughter could do just as well or better at home.
“Often there was one good coach in an academy and that coach was already busy with someone else and the other coaches were much lower level, and a lower level than those working in Latvia,” Jakovleva said. “It was a mix of things. I had this higher education, this master’s degree as a coach, and I can professionally evaluate how coaches are working. I felt qualified to do that.”
Source : NYtimes
