Wim Fissette (born 22 March 1980) is a Belgian
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 ...
coach and former professional player. He has worked with former
Women's Tennis Association
The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. It governs the WTA Tour which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women and was founded to create a better future for women's tenn ...
(WTA) world number ones
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 ...
,
Kim Clijsters
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (; born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters reached the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won six major titles, ...
,
Simona Halep
Simona Halep (; born 27 September 1991) is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019, for a total of 64 weeks, which ranks eleventh in the history of the Women's Tennis Assoc ...
,
Angelique Kerber
Angelique Kerber (; born 18 January 1988) is a German professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 1, for a total of 34 weeks, and won three major titles at the 2016 Australian Open, the 2016 US Open, and the 2018 Wi ...
, and
Naomi Osaka
is a Japanese professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles. Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam singles champio ...
.
Playing career
Fissette reached a career high singles ranking of 1,291 on 23 August 1999.
Coaching career
Fissette first took on the role of
Kim Clijsters
Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (; born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. Clijsters reached the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles, having held both rankings simultaneously in 2003. She won six major titles, ...
' coach upon the Belgian making a comeback onto the
WTA Tour
The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour.
WTA Tour tou ...
in 2009, having served as her hitting partner before her first retirement in 2007. Under his stewardship, Clijsters won the
US Open that year as a wildcard entry, and successfully retained the title
twelve months later
Twelve or 12 may refer to:
* 12 (number)
* December, the twelfth and final month of the year
Years
* 12 BC
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* 1912
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Film
* ''Twelve'' (2010 film), based on the 2002 novel
* ''12'' (2007 film), by Russian director and actor Nikita ...
. She also won the
2010 WTA Tour Championships
The 2010 WTA Tour Championships was held in Doha, Qatar from October 26 to October 31. It was the third and final time that the Khalifa International Tennis Complex hosted the WTA Tour Year-End Singles and Doubles Championships. In 2011 the com ...
, followed shortly after by the
Australian Open early the following year. She also reigned as the world number one for a solitary week in 2011. Fissette and Clijsters split in September that year.
After splitting from Clijsters, Fissette became the coach of
Sabine Lisicki shortly before the
2013 French Open. Although Lisicki was unable to win any titles under Fissette's leadership, she reached the final at
Wimbledon, losing to
Marion Bartoli
Marion Bartoli (; born 2 October 1984) is a French former professional tennis player. Bartoli won the 2013 Wimbledon Championships singles title after previously being runner-up in 2007, and was a semifinalist at the 2011 French Open. She also ...
in straight sets after ending
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
' 34-match winning streak and preventing her from equaling elder sister
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
' 35-match winning streak set in
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...
en route.
In 2014, Fissette became the coach of
Simona Halep
Simona Halep (; born 27 September 1991) is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019, for a total of 64 weeks, which ranks eleventh in the history of the Women's Tennis Assoc ...
. Their partnership brought about improved results for Halep, who that year reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the
Australian Open, the final of the
French Open and then the semi-finals at
Wimbledon. She also reached a career high ranking of world number two in August that year. The pair split at the end of the year, with Halep wanting to focus on working with coaches from her native Romania.
In February 2015, Fissette became the coach of 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 ...
, whose previous coach Sam Sumyk defected to coach
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 ...
(and later
Garbiñe Muguruza
Garbiñe Muguruza Blanco (; born 8 October 1993) is a Spanish-Venezuelan professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), and a career-high doubles ranking of world No. ...
). At the time of this appointment, Azarenka was ranked 50th in the world, her lowest ranking since June 2007. Fissette remained with Azarenka until she announced her pregnancy in mid-2016.
From the start of 2017 Fissette became the coach of
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 ...
. During his time coaching her, she had a successful start to the year, winning the
Sydney International and the
Miami Open and getting to the quarterfinals of the
Australian Open. The pair also had a successful grass court season, with Konta becoming the first British woman since
Virginia Wade
Sarah Virginia Wade (born 10 July 1945) is a British former professional tennis player. She won three Major tennis singles championships and four major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all ...
in 1978 to reach the semifinals of
Wimbledon. She reached a career high ranking of number 4 in the world with Fissette's help. However, it was announced on 18 October 2017 that Fisette and Johanna had mutually decided to split, following her string of bad results during the Asian tennis swing.
Fissette began working with two-time Grand Slam champion and former world number one
Angelique Kerber
Angelique Kerber (; born 18 January 1988) is a German professional tennis player. She has been ranked as high as world No. 1, for a total of 34 weeks, and won three major titles at the 2016 Australian Open, the 2016 US Open, and the 2018 Wi ...
in 2018 after the German struggled throughout 2017 and fell out of the top-20. Kerber was the third Major champion Fissette worked with in his coaching career. They split in October 2018 following differences of opinion with regard to Kerber's future direction. With Fisette, the 30-year-old Kerber, who reached No. 1 in the rankings in 2016 but now sat third, reached the semifinals of the Australian Open before going on to win Wimbledon.
On January 5, 2020, ''The Japan Times'' published an article in which he was named as the coach of
Naomi Osaka
is a Japanese professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles. Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam singles champio ...
, the Australian Open Women's Champion in 2019.
Coaching Grand Slam performance timeline
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fissette, Wim
1980 births
Living people
Belgian male tennis players
Belgian tennis coaches
Angelique Kerber