Darren Cahill (born 2 October 1965) is a

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 from Australia. In addition, Cahill is a tennis analyst for the Grand Slam events on the US sports network

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and a coach with the

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized as adidas since 1949) is a German multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufactur ...

Player Development Program and at ProTennisCoach.com.

Career

Player

Cahill turned professional in 1984. He won his first tour doubles title in 1985 at the Melbourne Outdoor tournament. In 1987, he won his first top-level singles title at

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. Cahill's best singles performance at a

Grand Slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...

event came at the 1988 US Open, where he knocked out

Lawson Duncan Lawson Duncan (born October 26, 1964) is a retired American tennis player. The right-hander reached his highest Association of Tennis Professionals singles ranking on May 20, 1985, when he became world No. 47. His best performance in a grand sl ...

Boris Becker Boris Franz Becker (, ; born 22 November 1967) is a German former world No. 1 tennis player. Becker was successful from the start of his career, winning the Wimbledon Championships at the age of 17. He ultimately won six Grand Slam singles tit ...

, Marcelo Ingaramo (a walkover after Ingaramo withdrew),

Martin Laurendeau Martin Laurendeau (; born July 10, 1964) is a former touring professional tennis player and the former coach and (non-playing) captain of the Canada Davis Cup team Tennis career A 6'3 right-hander, Laurendeau starred in collegiate tennis at P ...

, and

Aaron Krickstein Aaron Krickstein (born August 2, 1967), nicknamed "Marathon Man", is an American former professional tennis player who competed on the ATP Tour from 1983 to 1996. He currently competes on the Outback Champions Series Over-30 tour. Krickstein r ...

on the way to reaching the semifinals, where he lost to eventual champion

Mats Wilander Mats Arne Olof Wilander (; born 22 August 1964) is a Swedish former world No. 1 tennis player. From 1982 to 1988, he won seven major singles titles (three at the French Open, three at the Australian Open, and one at the US Open), and one major ...

. In 1989, Cahill finished runner-up in men's doubles at the

Australian Open The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Th ...

partnering fellow Aussie

Mark Kratzmann Mark Edward Kratzmann (born 17 May 1966) is a former Australian professional tennis player. Tennis career Kratzmann was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder in 1983. Juniors As the world's No. 1 ranked junior player in 1984, K ...

. Also with Kratzmann, Cahill won the ATP Championships in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. Cahill was a member of the Australian team which reached the final of the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...

in 1990. The team lost 3–2 to the United States in the final. Cahill compiled a 6–4 career Davis Cup record (4–0 in doubles and 2–4 in singles). Cahill won his last tour singles title in 1991 at

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. His last doubles title came in 1994 in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. In 1989, Cahill's reached his career peak doubles ranking of world no. 10 and his peak singles ranking of no. 22 in 1989. After chronic knee injuries and ten operations, he retired from the professional tour in 1995.

Coach

Since retiring from the tour, Cahill has been a successful tennis coach and guided

Lleyton Hewitt Lleyton Glynn Hewitt (born 24 February 1981) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. He is the most recent Australian man to win a major singles title, with two at the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon Championships. In November 200 ...

to become the youngest player ever ranked world no. 1. After Hewitt, Cahill coached

Andre Agassi Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. He is an eight-time major champion and an Olympic gold medalist, as well as a runner-up in seven other majors. Agassi is the second of five men to ach ...

, who under Cahill became the oldest player ever to be ranked world no. 1 in May 2003. Cahill joined the Adidas Player Development Program after Agassi retired in 2006 and has worked with high-profile players, including

Andy Murray Sir Andrew Barron Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a British professional tennis player from Scotland. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 41 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 in 2016. Murray h ...

Ana Ivanovic Ana Schweinsteiger ( sr, Ана Швајнштајгер / ''Ana Švajnštajger''; born 6 November 1987), professionally known by her birth name Ana Ivanovic (Ана Ивановић / ''Ana Ivanović'', ), is a Serbian former world No. 1 tenn ...

Fernando Verdasco Fernando Verdasco Carmona (; born 15 November 1983) is a Spanish professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking is world No. 7, achieved in April 2009. His best performance in a Grand Slam was making the semifinals of the 2009 ...

Daniela Hantuchová Daniela Hantuchová (; born 23 April 1983) is a Slovak tennis commentator and retired player. She turned professional in 1999 and had her breakthrough year in 2002, when she won her first WTA Tour title at the Indian Wells Masters, defeating Mar ...

Sorana Cîrstea Sorana Mihaela Cîrstea (; born 7 April 1990) is a Romanian professional tennis player. In singles, she achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 21 on 12 August 2013. In doubles, her career-high ranking is No. 35, which she reached on 9 March ...

, and

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 ...

. In 2017 and 2018, he coached Halep to No.1 on the WTA Tour and the

2018 French Open The 2018 French Open was a Grand Slam (tennis), major tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts. It took place at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France, from 27 May to 10 June and consisted of events for players in singles, doubles and m ...

championship. After a year away, Cahill rejoined with Halep in 2020. In addition to coaching individual players, Cahill was the Australian

coach from 2007 until February 2009. He is also an

talent scout and works with promising junior players worldwide. He is now a member of the

Player Development Program. With Roger Rasheed,

Brad Gilbert Brad Gilbert (born August 9, 1961) is a former professional tennis player and an American tennis coach. During his career, he won 20 singles titles and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 in 1990, and a career-high doubles rank ...

, and

Paul Annacone Paul Annacone (born March 20, 1963) is an American former touring professional tennis player and current tennis coach. He is the former coach of 20-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer, 14-time Grand Slam winner Pete Sampras, and 2017 US Open ...

, Cahill is a coach at ProTennisCoach.com, an open-access, professional coaching website. Cahill is also involved with PlaySight Interactive, a sports technology company behind the SmartCourt. Along with Paul Annacone, he heads up PlaySight's Coaching and Player Development team, helping the company to bring its technology to more tennis coaches and players across the world. In January 2022, Cahill began coaching tennis player

Amanda Anisimova Amanda Anisimova ( ; , ; born August 31, 2001) is a Russian-American professional tennis player. She has a career-high WTA ranking of No. 21 in the world, and has been ranked in the top 100 since shortly after turning 17 years old. Anisimova has ...

as a trial coach. He joined as a coach for

Jannik Sinner Jannik Sinner (; ; born 16 August 2001) is an Italian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 9 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), achieved on 1 November 2021, and world No. 124 in doubles, achieved on 2 ...

in July 2022.

Media

Since 2007, Cahill is a tennis analyst for the global sports network

for three of the four major tennis

s: the

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

and the US Open. He also works for the Australian television network Channel 7 for the

Hopman Cup The Hopman Cup is an international eight-team indoor hardcourt tennis tournament that played mixed-gender teams on a country-by-country basis.It was held in Perth, Western Australia each year from 1989 to 2019, before being replaced on the calen ...

and

Personal life

Cahill is the son of

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

player and coach John Cahill. He has two children, Tahlia and Benjamin. His

nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...

is ''Killer''. He was an

Australian Institute of Sport The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The Institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the ...

scholarship holder.AIS at the Olympics

ATP career finals

Singles: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

Doubles: 20 (13–7)

Mixed doubles: 1 (0–1)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Mixed Doubles

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cahill, Darren 1965 births American television sports announcers Australian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Australian Institute of Sport tennis players Australian male tennis players Australian tennis coaches Living people Tennis players from Adelaide Sportspeople from the Las Vegas Valley Australian tennis commentators Tennis people from Nevada Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic tennis players of Australia People educated at Sacred Heart College, Adelaide