What happens when you pair the best player on the WTA Tour with one of its most decorated coaches?
That was the question in October, when then world No. 1 Iga Swiatek brought on Wim Fissette as her head coach. Fissette, a cerebral 44-year-old from Belgium, is widely considered one of the top coaches on the women’s tour after achieving so much success with such a range of players.
Fissette, who never cracked the top 1,000 as a player in the 1990s and early 2000s, has excelled as a coach ever since his first job with compatriot Kim Clijsters. At 29, he coached Clijsters when she won the 2009 U.S. Open having only just returned from maternity leave, and was in her corner for three major titles in total.
He has since coached an all-star list of players, taking in Sabine Lisicki, Simona Halep, Victoria Azarenka (twice), Petra Kvitova, Sara Errani, Johanna Konta, Angelique Kerber, Zheng Qinwen and most recently Naomi Osaka. Fissette and Osaka split in September when she replaced him with the other most celebrated coach on the WTA Tour, Patrick Mouratoglou.
Under Fissette’s guidance, Osaka won the 2020 U.S. Open and 2021 Australian Open, taking his Grand Slam total as a coach to six after Kerber’s Wimbledon win of 2018. He also took both Lisicki (2013 Wimbledon) and Halep (2014…
