Struggling Monfils splits from coach

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"Gael Monfils has ended his 16-month association with coach Patrick Chamagne, his agent Nicolas Lamperin has confirmed."

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/t...142525557.html

The good news is that he is expected to be back on tour for the start of 2013 and intends to play Doha ahead of the Australian Open.

[NadalAgassi]

No coach can save him at this point. He will never live up to his huge athletic potential.

[pvaudio]

That's because he spent too much time being goofy and blew out his knees.

[Gonzo_style]

I hope for his full recovery from injuries, I've always enjoyed his matches at Roland Garros in front of home crowd.

[Russeljones]

He doesn't need a coach. He needs a psychiatrist.

[*Sparkle*]

Doesn't he have the same basic knee condition as Murray? Perhaps he was too late getting it diagnosed to adjust his game to protect it, but perhaps he needs to get his doctor to have a word with Andy's doctor and/or trainer.

[The-Champ]

I thought he was hiring Rasheed...

[Ash_Smith]

^^^Nope, Rasheed is working with Tsonga now (bumped into him at the O2)

Cheers

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Originally Posted by The-Champ

I thought he was hiring Rasheed...

He parted from him last year. Rasheed is now coaching Tsonga.

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Originally Posted by *Sparkle*

Doesn't he have the same basic knee condition as Murray? Perhaps he was too late getting it diagnosed to adjust his game to protect it, but perhaps he needs to get his doctor to have a word with Andy's doctor and/or trainer.

I read this somewhere too. I think the main difference and problem for Monfils is that Murray has always been aware of the condition, a bi-partite patella (2 bones in the knee not fused properly) and adjusted his game accordingly whereas it seems not to have been discovered in Monfils until much later or at least that's the impression I got from what I read.

[*Sparkle*]

That's a shame. From what I recall, Andy had been experiencing knee pain for a while, but everyone was just like "stop being a hypo and get on with it", until he eventually had an MRI on it. I think he was 19, which was a decent stretch into his pro career, but obviously young enough for him to do whatever it is he does to protect it. You'd think an MRI is one of the first things to do, as it's supposedly not that rare a condition.

My friend has an occasionally painful knee, and it didn't take that much complaining to get an MRI on the NHS, so you'd think with all of the money involved professional athletes would get that sort of thing done at the first sign of a problem.

As an aside, I'm convinced that the better access (some) athletes are getting to technologies such as MRIs for swifter diagnosis to separate serial niggles from serious conditions is one of the reasons older players are not fading so fast to make way for the young and as yet un-injured upstarts.