Coco Gauff’s coach says his teen daughter helps him understand young star

WTA Tour

James Richardson
February 17, 2023

Seasoned coach Diego Moyano says that having a teenaged daughter helps him relate to his charge Coco Gauff.

Moyano feels that his family life and tennis have always fed into each other as he had found that tennis coaching helped him understand his own children better.

Now he feels that has been reversed with his kids helping him understand young tennis players.

“Back when I was coaching in 1997 and ’98 before all this social media started, coaching then, was helping me to be a better father because they were young and it was helping me to understand my kids,” he said on the ATP Radio Podcast.

“And now its kind of reverse, because my daughter helps me to understand Coco, they both have lot of things similar. The way that they deal with the social media, is similar.”

Moyano believes that young players can’t just be about tennis and nothing else.

“To be the best player you can be, you need to be a well-rounded person and you need to have knowledge of what surrounds you. Even on the tennis side, if we live in a bubble, beside that you have to get as close as you can to a normal life. So having friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever makes you happy. If you have the chance to do it, go to the galleries, see the fashion and use the tennis to see the other things outside of tennis.”

Gauff is the first female player that Moyano has taken on as a full time client having previously directed Kevin Anderson, Reilly Opelka and Tommy Paul.

He felt that with Gauff keen to work with him it was a challenge that excited him.

“I just kind of started to work with Coco and it was kind of a great challenge, I think, and that was a great project for me and she wanted to work with me so it kind of fit well and I decided to work with WTA and with Coco and actually, here we are.

Moyano added: “It is fascinating to see the difference and it also goes back on the preperations and the communication is totally different.

“One is the emotions, yeah. Men and women deal completely differently with their emotions, the way that you communicate has to be different. I mean, we can go on and on with the difference, but it is fascinating.” he said.

Coco Gauff