Vera Zvonareva tells Russia’s Sport-Express that the reason for her recent split with her coach Sergei Demekhin was that he didn't want to work with a team. Zvonareva brought in another coach, Karen Krotov, to work with her during the U.S. spring hard court swing and during Fed Cup week in April encouraged Demekhin, her junior mixed doubles partner, to work with other coaches.
"It’s important for me to trust people who are close by," she said. "The team should be a single entity rather than a group of individuals with their own ambitions. As for asking Demekhin to Fed Cup, for me it was very important. It seemed to me that a young, still not quite experienced [coach] would benefit from working alongside players and coaches from the national team. Unfortunately, judging from what Sergei said, he didn’t think so."
Demekhin, who worked with Zvonareva for a year and helped coach her to her first two Grand Slam finals, confirmed to Sport Express that he was dissatisfied with the arrangement. "Maybe she wanted to introduce something new to her trainings and get Krotov to take part in her preparations, but I was against it,” he said. "I have my own vision of her tennis, so when new person joined our team I didn’t want to take responsibility for his actions. That is why I decided to leave this team, because I don’t want to harm Vera…I want to continue working in women’s tennis. I have experience and I know girls’ psychology, so let’s wait for offers." - Matthew Cronin