Dmitry Tursunov Exclusive: On transitioning from player to coach, experience of coaching Emma Raducanu and Belinda Bencic, thoughts on the Big-3, and more
It's hard to straight-jacket Dmitry Tursunov - born in Russia and residing in the United States, played on the ATP Tour and is coaching on the WTA Tour. The former World No. 20, who won 7 ATP singles and 7 doubles titles during his time as a pro player, is best known for his powerful baseline game and his tennis blog during his playing days.
Since then, Tursunov has transitioned into one of the most sought-after coaches in the women's game. After working with Aryna Sabalenka, Anett Kontaveit and Emma Raducanu, the 39-year-old is now working with Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic.
In an in-depth interview with Sportskeeda, Tursunov talks about his career, the differences he sees in the men's and women's game, his foray into coaching on the WTA Tour, the Big 3's achievements, their NextGen challengers, and a lot more.
Exclusive Interview with Dmitry Tursunov
Sportskeeda: I wanted to start off by talking about your career. You reached the top 20 and won 7 ATP singles titles during your time as a player. How do you look back at your career; with like a sense of a lot of pride and achievement or are there any regrets?
Dmitry Tursunov: I honestly don't look back at it that much. For me, it's always been difficult to evaluate it. I feel like I could have been much better but I didn't particularly love tennis as much as, say Rafa Nadal, he looks like he truly enjoys it. I think that helps to push yourself and sacrifice even more than I did. Now when I look at some of the younger players, I feel like I've sacrificed a lot more, but in comparison to Roger Federer, I'm not sure if that was enough. Those guys are extremely dedicated. So, again, I look at things in comparison. Of course, I was No. 20 in the world and in that sense, my career was probably better than a lot of players out there. At the same time though, Holger Rune just won Paris and I never got past the second or third round in Paris. In that sense, I feel like I'm an underachiever. I think it's hard to really walk around and say I was an unbelievable player because there are a lot of players that are better than me.
I don't know, what do you compare it to. Because when we say that someone has a good career, or a bad career, we always compare it to something, right? And that's the question, what do you compare it to? That's why for me, it's difficult to really assess it in that sense.
Sportskeeda: Any special memories that you will really stick out - in terms of winning a particular title or doing well at a particular tournament. What are your favorite memories from your playing days?
Dmitry Tursunov: Again, I think that, maybe because I wasn't as obsessed about winning as some of the other players, I feel like I should have some stronger memories, but I don't really. A lot of times people have mentioned my matches in Davis Cup 2006 and that was a good year for us. We won, but I honestly don't remember much of it.
You feel like people always expect tennis players to remember every single point and every single emotion and honestly it feels like it was in another life. So maybe I'm just weird in that way. I don't know what to attribute it to.
Of course, there are certain tournaments that I won but I can’t say that I have a glass of beer in the evening and then sit and remember how awesome I was and stuff like that. It doesn't happen that way, unfortunately. I wish I had a slightly stronger emotional connect to some of those memories.
Sportskeeda: After your playing career, you got into coaching and for the last few years, you've coached several top female players. Was there always an inclination towards coaching, or was it that the opportunity presented itself and you kind of moved on from there?
Dmitry Tursunov: Well, on the men's tour, at the time I was playing, there was this perception that women's coaches are not really good at coaching. And so, it was considered a demotion if you end up there. So many people joke with me, if 10 years ago someone would have told you that you're going to be coaching on the women's tour, you would probably commit suicide, but here I am.
Looking back, though it was definitely unexpected that I was going to get into coaching, I did like to help others even when I was playing. At the time, (Aslan) Karatsev was pretty young and I took him with me to pre-season and then when we were practicing I spent more time addressing his issues instead of focusing on mine. I guess I always had that inclination to help and I enjoyed it to the point where I tried to help even if no one asked me. In that sense, I think it is logical for me to coach, but I probably would never have guessed that I was going to do it for a living.
I didn't really think that far ahead. I stopped playing due to injuries. I remember vividly thinking that this is taking too much of my life, I don’t get to see the family or anything. I thought I'd spend a little more time with the family and at home, and then what do you know, I ended up coaching. And now, I travel more than I have ever traveled in my life. So, it's kind of interesting how it turned out. I honestly have to say I really enjoy doing what I'm doing. I enjoy it more than actually playing tennis. So, I think that's why I'm doing it.
Sportskeeda: You have competed on the men’s out for many years and now you have been coaching on the women’s tour for a few years. Can you talk about some of the fundamental differences that you see in the men’s game and women’s game?
Dmitry Tursunov: Obviously, on the men’s tour, it’s a lot more physical because men are generally just stronger and so the game is quite fast. If you take that part out, which is obviously not in anyone's control because we are born the way we're born, I think the men's game has a lot less tolerance for unforced errors and bad decision making. I think you can get away on the women’s tour with a much higher number of unforced errors and bad decision-making, and can still get back into it.
In a men’s match, it's almost impossible to survive. We could argue why it is so, but that's just the way I see it. I've had my share of arguments from every critic out there, especially if they want to put this into the men versus women thing, which they always do nowadays, it's pretty fashionable to address every sort of criticism of women’s tennis to that. But the reality of it is like that, if you look at it statistically, I’m sure the unforced errors are just much higher.
Also, the overall level between players is a little tighter with the men. I think it's more competitive. And so that forces you to improve because if you don't improve, you won’t be able to survive. I have kind of mentioned a few times that I feel like on the women’s tour, the competition allows you to not push yourself higher, because if you can win by putting in 50% of the effort, why would you put 100 per cent. It's actually quite surprising and funny how some people are really refusing to see that part. I think that's really the main difference.
I know a lot of people say girls are more emotional than men. I think a lot of that depends on how much you're allowed to get away with. If you're allowed to get away with being more emotional, then yes, you'll be more emotional. I mean, boys and girls cry the same way. But with boys, parents typically say, well, you're not supposed to cry because you're a boy. And so, you stop crying eventually because, you feel bad for doing that. If someone tells you that, “Oh, it's okay, you know, you're a girl, so you can go crazy and break a racquet because you're just emotional”, then of course, she's going to do that more often. I don't really believe in that. Obviously, there's some differences physiologically with us, but I don't think it's to that extent that people believe.
Sportskeeda: When you started working as a coach, you worked with Aryna Sabalenka and she broke into the top 10. You also had a great stint with Anett Kontaveit earlier this year as she climbed to No. 2. Were you surprised by the success that you had as a coach so quickly with these players?
Dmitry Tursunov: I like to doubt myself quite a lot. I think that helps me in some ways. It doesn't let me become very dogmatic and believe that this is the only way. So, sometimes I question myself, am I correct in doing it the right way? Or am I incorrect? And I think this helps to keep myself in check.
With Aryna, she is extremely talented. She has physical abilities that most girls just don't have. I think with her, it was a little bit easier to work with in that sense. She just has so much firepower, it's pretty easy to build a game around that firepower. But you still need to know how to use it, you still need to be able to control yourself and your emotions, and have that kind of disciplined decision making. That was her area of improvement. So, I kind of tried to just focus on what a person can improve.
As I'm coaching a player, I just look okay, so the player doesn't have this, let's add this to the game. I don't really compare them to anyone else. I don’t have any expectations of what ranking the player should be at. All I say is "You can improve in this area and you can improve on that", and then I just work on those things. Where that is going to get you, I really don't know. It’s hard for me to look at Aryna and say, okay, this is where you are, you're going to be top 10 If you do this, or you're going to be No 1 if you do that. I didn't know how high she's going to get with her game. I was just focused on things that she could improve and could do better. And wherever that would take her is out of my hands.
It's not as glamorous as most people think. It's actually pretty simple, just focus on improvement and certain aspects of your game, and then let's see how far that's going to take you. At the end of the day, results are sort of the side effect of self-improvement. So, if you focus on that, the results will take care of themselves. If you focus on the results, well, that's not going to help you improve on its own, you have to work at it.
Sportskeeda: When you are looking to coach a player, or somebody comes up and says we want to work with you as a coach, what are some of the qualities that you look out for in that player before taking them on?
Dmitry Tursunov: Really just someone who wants to improve. I don't really look for height, age, none of that stuff. I'd love to win a Grand Slam as a coach. But you know, ultimately, it's not really up to me.
I'm just there to help someone become better and guide them. There are certain physical limitations that people have, and it's going to be hard to play around them. Focusing on beating someone in particular is going to be very difficult, focusing on improving yourself and being the best that you can be, that's more attainable. And this is ultimately my job.
The only ceiling that people have is the ceiling of their own best potential. You can't jump higher than you can jump, right? But how high can you jump; we really don't know until we exhaust all of our options. I think tennis is a game where you're able to beat players that you're technically not supposed to beat. In tennis, you can be much stronger, much smarter, and a much better player but still lose. And that's kind of the beauty of it. You could have a Lleyton Hewitt or a Diego Schwartzman, you could have all these kinds of case scenarios where you're looking, and you're saying, like, Okay, well, this person is not supposed to play well based purely on physical abilities. But they're able to bring their games together in such a way and can improve in other areas to compensate for their lack of physical abilities. But again, in order to reach that maximum potential, I think you need to have the desire, and that's really the thing that I would look for, is if the player is willing to do that.
Sportskeeda: Talking about your recent stint with Emma Raducanu. You worked with her through the US Open summer. How do you think she managed the pressure of being the defending champion at the US Open? Also, Raducanu is one of the most high-profile athletes in the world today. Were you surprised with the level of attention on her and how do you feel she coped with that?
Dmitry Tursunov: Honestly, I did not see or feel that there were a lot of outside things going on. From the time that we started, Emma just really had her nose to the ground. She was very hard working and I did not see her skip a lot of things. There was no aura of diva or superstar about her and I think she has been managing that part very well. I was super impressed with her and couldn’t be happier with the way she is as a professional athlete.
As far as defending the US Open, I have never won a Slam so I don’t know what it’s like to defend a Grand Slam. I think she has done quite well in that sense. Honestly, the expectations of her repeating it were extremely unrealistic and anyone who understands anything about tennis would agree to that. It's not because she doesn't have the abilities. She has the ability but the game just needs to be improved to have that consistency to play at the high level. I think she was also very realistic, she understood that she's got sort of a long way to improve and climb. And I think she was absolutely ready for it and hungry to improve. I can't get into her mind. I can't speak for her. But that's the impression that I was getting.
From my perspective, there's only positive things that I can say about her, just the way she handled it, how professional she is for her age. I wish I was like that when I played.
Sportskeeda: It's been a few weeks that you've been working with Belinda Bencic. What have the first few weeks been like? What attracted you to working with Belinda and made you say yes to the offer to coach her?
Dmitry Tursunov: I think she was ready to improve. That's the kind of the vibe that I get. She was just very direct and knew what she wanted. There was no hesitation, it was just, okay, I want to improve, I'm ready, I feel like I need to. The things that she is saying, me as an ex-player, I recognize that the person is willing to make the changes. So just the things that she was saying, they resonated, they made sense. And I felt like, this is the player that wants to get better. And that's what I'm looking for is to help someone get better. I felt like it was a good match.
It's exactly the same situation that I felt with Emma. She also wanted to improve, she wanted to get better, she loves tennis and genuinely has a strong passion for it. It's a pleasure to work with a player like that.
Sportskeeda: You mentioned earlier that you don't look at rankings as a yardstick for success and focus more on improvement. When you start working with a new player, do you outline a few areas that you want to start improving immediately or does that happen through the course of the partnership?
Dmitry Tursunov: In terms of improvement, ranking is absolutely irrelevant. Whether you're No. 10 in the world, whether you're No. 100 in the world. I’m just like, okay, what can we improve? If somebody like Novak Djokovic called and said he wanted to improve, he's obviously a great athlete and great player already, so to find an area of improvement for him would be a lot harder than for some other players.
In that sense, it's almost easier to work with someone who's ranked lower because there's just that much more room for improvement. I feel there's maybe three or four players out there that are really maximizing their potential so there's a lot of room for improvement for everyone.
Even with Belinda, I feel like there's a lot of improvement out there. Now, to improve certain parts of the game, that's not always easy, because if it's technical, then you have to have time to reprogram certain movements, certain technical parts. And for someone who's a bit older, it's harder, because they've played in a certain way for much longer, and to break down, their typical pattern of movement, their footwork, back swings, or biomechanics, it's a little bit harder, because you essentially have to forget how you used to play and change to something new.
So, there's certain things that take a lot more time. Certain things are much easier. And based on that, you have to figure out okay, when can you improve? You're not going to be changing certain mechanical things while playing tournaments, because when you go out and play a match, you don't want to be thinking about how to hit a forehand. You just want to be thinking about where to hit it. That creates certain problems and that's why I think a lot of players tend to not change things.
But it is possible. Some people's techniques have changed over a period of a few years. People do change things if they feel like it's necessary for them to improve, then they're more inclined and more willing to change. When there's a desire to improve, mentally they're more open to changing things because you can't really force someone to change against their will.
So, that's why I think it's important for the player to really have that desire to improve because then they're more willing to go out of their comfort zone, and to apply a lot more mental effort, and they're more willing to deal with temporary disappointments. As long as you have the belief that in the long term, it's going to benefit me, then you're willing to deal with temporary setbacks.
So, depending on what you're trying to change and then how long it takes for you to change it, then you've really got to figure out okay, is this something that we can address during the season? Or do we have to wait until the offseason? I think that's the job of a coach - to figure out, okay, how do I creatively help someone change things faster than it would normally take?
Sportskeeda: Over the last couple of seasons, there have been a couple of players who have dominated the women’s tennis scene. Last year, Ash Barty was doing really well, winning Wimbledon and the Australian Open in a span of seven months before retiring. After that, Iga Swiatek has been the most dominant player. What do you think made each of them stand out as compared to the rest of the field?
Dmitry Tursunov: With Ash, I felt that she was a very complete player. Even psychologically, she was just a very wholesome person. She seemed like she was happy, you know? I've heard her speak a few times publicly. She's very eloquent and very intelligent. In that sense, I think it's not surprising that she stopped, as weird as it sounds. It sort of makes sense. Some people are extremely obsessed with tennis, they can't see themselves without it. And she doesn't seem like that type of person. But again, I don't know her personally. That’s just my perception.
On the court, she was playing chess, she wasn't just hitting the ball, she was positioning, she was moving her opponents with the ball. They say tennis is like chess and she shows a very good representation of that. Also at the time, some players weren’t playing a lot of matches, like Naomi Osaka, so there wasn't a really huge rivalry out there.
I think when Ash left, Iga was just kind of left a bit on her own out there and started dominating. The girls that were supposed to progress and had the potential to create a very strong competitive environment for Iga for whatever reasons, they weren't putting up that much of resistance. I've seen a lot of players; they get to the top 10 and then fall out of the top 10 and it seems like a very common theme over the last few years. And I think Iga was the best prepared to just take over and dominate.
The sort of consistency that you see from the Big Four on the men's side, it's not the same on the women’s tour. Maybe it'll change, maybe it won’t, I'm just sort of looking at those facts at the moment.
The question is, if Ash was playing would there be this onslaught from Iga?. I guess that's an open debate, but my feeling is that things would have been different if Ash was there. Who knows what's going to happen next year? We'll see. Time will tell.
Iga seems pretty solid at the moment, her head is in the game, she seems hungry. It's almost like she's not really competing with other players, she's just kind of competing with herself. She has improved her game. I feel like she's playing a tad more aggressive this year than she played the last couple of years. And of course, she has a lot more belief in herself and that's what winning a lot of matches does to you.
Sportskeeda: You spoke about the Big Four a few minutes ago. You played Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal multiple times and Novak Djokovic once. What’s your take on the whole G.O.A.T. debate and who is the greatest men’s player of all time according to you?
Dmitry Tursunov: Honestly, I see these debates and I see people with their mouths foaming discussing these things, and everyone kind of brings out their own argument. I've never really had that super huge desire to try to figure out who's the greatest of all time and I don't really pay attention to that.
Obviously, Roger was the first guy to have this huge domination. Pete Sampras also had this huge domination in tennis, but I think Roger just took it to another level and then Rafa caught up and followed him and surpassed him and then there is Novak, who has passed Roger and is one behind Rafa. Who knows, maybe someone else is going to become even bigger than all of them.
I think all of them really want to put their names in the history books. That's why I think they're super dedicated, and they push themselves extremely hard, they're willing to sacrifice a lot for that. I would imagine that it's necessary to do that. Otherwise, I don't think any normal person would be willing to push themselves to the limit. It takes a certain mindset and I think it's pretty ridiculously incredible how you could have three of these people at the same time just basically each one of them would have been an incredible surpass of Sampras. But to have them all three play together is pretty ridiculous. I don't know if they are spoiling the tennis fans or not but they're certainly setting a very high bar for all the other players that are following them.
Sportskeeda: From the youngsters coming up on the tours, does anyone stand out to you and has really impressed you, besides Carlos Alcaraz, who is already No 1 in the world?
Dmitry Tursunov: There's of course a lot of talent out there as well as technological improvement. I think everything else sort of helps. It helps to develop players a little bit younger. Honestly, of late, I have watched more women’s matches because of the job I have and I haven't really gotten to watch that much men's tennis.
Obviously, Holger Rune is doing very well right now. I remember I saw him just two years ago in Turkey and he was playing $15Ks there. He's had a very rapid improvement. I think that the fact that Alcaraz just being 19 years old and being No. 1 in the world, sort of helps him in a way. Because he sees that and says hey, it's possible.
With the girls also, I see a lot of super talented players. The question is, are they going to be able to achieve something great or are they just going to end up being just talented players? That's a different question.
I also kind of look at it from a different perspective. I don't see it as a spectator who's enjoying tennis. When I see a player, I’m like okay, how can this person improve? In that sense, all I see is just room for improvement with everyone and I'm kind of running it through my head. I'm like, "Okay," if I was working with this person, what would I do to improve? It’s like if I was to go to a music concert, I’d just enjoy the orchestra but a musician would just hear all the missing notes. I don't know if it's a gift or a curse in that sense.
Sportskeeda: One final question, if you had the opportunity to coach any former player or retired player, who would that be?
Dmitry Tursunov: Well, I think it would have been interesting to coach myself. But I think every retired player would say that. When you have the knowledge and the wisdom that you get with age, you see things from a different perspective, and you see how you could have done things differently in many ways. I think that's the human experience, where only after making a mistake, you realize that you made a mistake, right? But I feel like all the mistakes that I've made as a player or as a human actually help me in my job as a coach today.