Marinko Matosevic is still quite firm on his stand that he would never even think about being coached by a female.
Matosevic had said the same thing a while back too when the Scot player Andy Murray had named Amelie Mauresmo as his coach.
Back in June 2014, when the 29-year old Aussie was asked if the female coaches could prove to be helpful for the male players, this is what he had to say, “As far as I am concerned, I would never do that. But, Andy obviously thinks differently. He got great coaching from his mother in the initial phases of his career. Now, we should wait and watch how he shapes up under Amelie.”
“I need to be a little bit political here though. We talk about equal rights nowadays. So, it had to happen at some point of time. Somebody had to go for a female coach. It has happened to be Andy, but, as I said, I would always prefer to be guided by a male.”
Eight months down the road, Matosevic faced Murray in the Australian Open yesterday and got absolutely smashed.
But, even after that, he was of the same view about the female coaches. In his interview last evening, when he was reminded of his statement of the previous year and was asked if he was still on that same page, Matosevic said, “Yes absolutely and I have my reasons for that. There is a vast difference between our game and the women’s game.”
This statement of Matosevic is likely to create some controversy again.
Matosevic, who is 77th in the world rankings in singles category, could just win six games in three sets in the match against Murray. It was an embarrassing defeat for him surely.