Sam Sumyk (born 1967) is a French tennis coach. He has coached

Donna Vekic Donna may refer to the short form of the honorific ''nobildonna'', the female form of Don (honorific) in Italian. People *Donna (given name); includes name origin and list of people and characters with the name * Roberto Di Donna (born 1968), Ita ...

since September 2020. Until late March 2020, he coached WTA tennis pro

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova Anastasia Sergeyevna "Nastia" Pavlyuchenkova (russian: Анастаси́я "Настя" Серге́евна Павлюче́нкова; born 3 July 1991) is an inactive Russian professional tennis player. A junior prodigy, Pavlyuchenkova won ...

, but the two parted ways after just over six months. He has previously worked with former world number one players

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 ...

and

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. ...

, former world number two

Vera Zvonareva Vera Igorevna Zvonareva ( rus, Вера Игоревна Звонарёва, p=ˈvʲɛrə ˈiɡərʲɪvnə zvənɐˈrʲɵvə, a=Vera zvonareva.ogg; born 7 September 1984) is a Russian professional tennis player. She was introduced to tennis at ...

2014 Wimbledon The 2014 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 128th edition of the The Championships, Wimbledon, Wimbledon C ...

finalist

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 ...

, as well as other players.

Personal life

Sumyk is married to former WTA player

Meilen Tu Meilen Tu (traditional Chinese: 涂美倫, simplified Chinese: 涂美伦, Hanyu Pinyin: ''Tú Měilún'') (born January 17, 1978) is a retired professional tennis player from the U.S. She has won one WTA Tour singles title, four WTA Tour doubles ...

, whom he coached to her highest career ranking of 35 in 2007.

Coaching career

Prior to 2010, Sumyk coached Russian

, who first entered the top ten briefly in 2004 before injuries threatened to derail her career. After the pair split in 2009, Sumyk switched with António van Grichen and became the coach of

. The partnership between Sumyk and Azarenka would be a successful one. In his third year coaching Azarenka, the Belarusian won her first Grand Slam title at the

2012 Australian Open The 2012 Australian Open was a tennis tournament that took place in Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, from 16 to 29 January 2012. It was the 100th edition of the Australian Open, and the first Grand Slam event of the year. The tournamen ...

and reigned as the world number one for 51 of the 55 weeks that followed, during which she also successfully defended her Australian Open title in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

. Sumyk split from Azarenka shortly after the

2015 Australian Open The 2015 Australian Open was a tennis tournament that took place at Melbourne Park from 19 January to 1 February 2015. It was the 103rd edition of the Australian Open, and the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. Stan Wawrinka was the def ...

, after the Belarusian endured an injury-plagued 2014. Sumyk then coached former world number five

from February until August 2015. He then coached

; under his stewardship, Muguruza would win her first Grand Slam singles title at the

2016 French Open The 2016 French Open was a tennis tournament played on outdoor clay courts. It was the 120th edition of the French Open and the second Grand Slam event of the year. It took place at the Stade Roland Garros from 22 May to 5 June and consisted of ...

and her second at the

2017 Wimbledon Championships The 2017 Wimbledon Championships was a Grand Slam tennis tournament that took place at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, United Kingdom. The main draw matches commenced on 3 July 2017 and concluded on 16 July 2 ...

. Sumyk was not present in that tournament due to be with his wife

, who was pregnant at the time. Former world number two

Conchita Martínez "Conchita" Martínez Bernat (born 16 April 1972) is a Spanish former professional tennis player. She was the first Spaniard to win the women's singles title at Wimbledon, doing so in 1994. Martínez also was the runner-up at the 1998 Australi ...

took his place. Sumyk would continue to coach Muguruza until the pair split at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships. After that he started coaching

. According to an interview Pavlyuchenkova did with the Russian website Kommersant, she attributed a recent hip injury in part to a new training regimen and tournament scheduling put into place with Sumyk's arrival. She also discusses how so many coaches have large egos, and how she realized at the Australian Open that the atmosphere was not conducive to making improvements on court.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumyk Sam French tennis coaches Victoria Azarenka 1960s births Living people