Michael T. Joyce (born February 1, 1973) is an American former

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

player, who turned professional in 1991. The right-hander reached his highest ATP singles ranking of World No. 64 in April 1996. He also became a coach of professional players, most notably former world number one

Maria Sharapova Maria Yuryevna Sharapova ( , ; rus, Мари́я Ю́рьевна Шара́пова, p=mɐˈrʲijə ʂɐˈrapəvə, a=Maria_sharapova.ogg; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. She competed on the WTA Tour from 2 ...

from 2004 to 2011.

Tennis career

Juniors

He reached the final of the Wimbledon Jr event in 1991, where he was runner-up to

Thomas Enqvist Thomas Karl Johan Enqvist (born 13 March 1974) is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He reached the final of the 1999 Australian Open and won a total of 19 singles titles, including three Masters titles. He has a career high ATP world ...

Professional tennis player

On the professional tour, Joyce won 3 Challenger events and reached the 4th round of the

1995 Wimbledon Championships The 1995 Wimbledon Championships was a tennis tournament played on grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London in the United Kingdom. It was the 109th edition of the Wimbledon Championships and were held from ...

. He won the men's singles in the

Ojai Tennis Tournament The Ojai Tennis Tournament, often shortened to The Ojai, is an annual tennis tournament in Ventura County, California, headquartered at Libbey Park in downtown Ojai, about north of Los Angeles. The event, first held in 1896, is the oldest and l ...

in 2004. He was the subject of an essay by

David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...

in '' Esquire''; the essay was later republished in Wallace's collections ''

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again ''A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments'' is a 1997 collection of nonfiction writing by David Foster Wallace. In the title essay, originally published in '' Harper's'' as "Shipping Out", Wallace describes the excesses ...

'' and ''String Theory''. Throughout his time on the tour from 1991 to 2003, Joyce won against Pat Rafter, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Jim Courier and Michael Chang, and many more top players. Overall, Joyce's win–loss record is 46–67. He went 1-10 versus top 10 players.

Coach

Joyce was the coach of

, along with her father, Yuri Sharapov, from summer 2004 until January 2011, when he was replaced by Thomas Högstedt. During her cooperation with Joyce, Sharapova won three Grand Slam singles titles and reached the World No. 1 ranking. Joyce coached American tennis player

Jessica Pegula Jessica Pegula (born February 24, 1994) is an American professional tennis player. She has a career-high WTA rankings in singles and doubles of world No. 3, both achieved on October 24, 2022. She has won two singles titles and five doubles title ...

from 2012 to 2017. While with Joyce, in 2013 before suffering from an injury, Pegula reached a career high singles world ranking of 123 and a doubles world ranking of 92. Joyce coached former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova for more than a decade. He has now joined USTA Player Development as the women's tennis national coach. In 2017, Joyce coached former world number one

Victoria Azarenka Victória Fyódarauna Azárenka ( be, Вікторыя Фёдараўна Азаранка; Russian: Виктория Фёдоровна Азаренко; born 31 July 1989) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. Azarenka is a former w ...

for 8 months after she returned to competition following maternity leave. However, with family issues interrupting her schedule, the pair split at the end of the year, and Joyce took up the position of coach to

Johanna Konta Johanna Konta (born 17 May 1991) is a British former professional tennis player, having represented Australia until 2012. She won four singles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as 11 singles and four doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit. The ...

. In October 2018, Joyce split ways with Konta and began coaching

Eugenie Bouchard Eugenie "Genie" Bouchard (; french: Eugénie Bouchard, ; born February 25, 1994) is a Canadian tennis player. At the 2014 Wimbledon Championships, she became the first Canadian-born player representing Canada to reach the final of a Grand Slam t ...

. In April 2019, Joyce split ways with Bouchard; two months later he started to work with

Tímea Babos Tímea Babos (; born 10 May 1993) is a Hungarian professional tennis player who is a former world No. 1 in doubles. She is a four-time Grand Slam champion in women's doubles, having won the 2018 and 2020 Australian Opens, as well as the Fre ...

Personal life

Joyce currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida, with his wife Jenna and their daughter (born May 2016).

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 10 (6–4)

Doubles: 11 (4–7)

Junior Grand Slam finals

Singles: 1 (1 runner-up)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

References

External links

* *
Esquire: "The String Theory," July 1996
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joyce, Michael 1973 births Living people American male tennis players American tennis coaches Tennis people from California Tennis players from Santa Monica, California