Alejandro Davidovich Fokina claimed his coach left him after his opening match at the French Open (Image: Getty)
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina’s now-former coach, Mariano Puerta, has broken his silence after the world No. 23 claimed the Argentine coach suddenly left the team, flew home, and blocked both him and his wife following his first-round French Open victory over Damir Dzumhur on Sunday.
There were initially reports that Davidovich Fokina and Puerta had a bust-up after the match, and that the Spaniard axed his coach. After losing in the second round, the 26-year-old said his coach was the one who ended things in a text message hours after his opening match before jetting back to Miami.
Now, Puerta has given his side of the story, explaining that he had already been struggling with the “intense” player and said “something bad happened” during Davidovich Fokina’s win over Dzumhur. The Argentine thought he’d get a chance to speak to the world No. 23 after sending the lengthy text message, but claims Davidovich Fokina told him to fly home on his own means.
“I’d like to start by saying that I arrived in Paris with my patience completely exhausted. The whole team knew it; what I’m about to say won’t surprise anyone. In fact, I’d told more than one person on the team that if certain things didn’t change, I wouldn’t last much longer,” Puerta, a former world No. 9, told Punto de Break.
“After six months with Alex, the reality is that the player still wasn’t showing any improvement in an area where the entire team had unanimously asked him to start working. I’m referring to the mental and emotional aspect.
“Look, Alex is a player who, when he’s on the court, is very intense, very emotional, and can often have reactions that are a bit out of line. Perhaps bordering on disrespect. For example, the second round we had at the Australian Open was already a very difficult match in that sense. People who know him will have seen that, on occasion, someone even left his box.
“It’s not easy to deal with this when it happens constantly, so after almost 20 weeks of travelling with him, there came a point where I needed to make a cut if I didn’t want to end up getting sick. And look, I’m a former player myself, I’ve been there, but in that sense, I reached a limit that wouldn’t allow me to continue.”
Mariano Puerta said he thought he’d get to have a conversation with Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (Image: Getty)
While the Argentine said he had an “amazing time” with Davidovich Fokina off the court, he reached a breaking point during the Spaniard’s five-set win over Dzumhur. He explained: “Yes, something bad happened in the fourth or fifth set. At a point in the match when I was trying to encourage him, when I wanted to push him so he wouldn’t lose focus, Alex turned around with a look on his face that made it seem like he was going to kill me.
“‘Can’t you see I’m tired? That I can’t move? Don’t you ever say another word to me!’ He said it in a way that I still feel. I didn’t answer him […] The thing is, these things accumulate until one day the rope breaks.”
Puerta confirmed that he told Davidovich Fokina’s manager that he couldn’t continue, and then sent the 26-year-old a lengthy message explaining his decision to step away. But he said that Davidovich Fokina replied that night, saying they’d talk the following day. When that conversation never happened, the coach left and blocked him.
“I assure you I was thrilled, I wanted to talk. I started thinking that maybe he was open to reflecting, or maybe we could finish the tournament together and then discuss the text I sent him. Do you think that if we had sat down to talk the next day and he had asked me to stay, I wouldn’t have?” the coach continued.
“There’s zero chance I wouldn’t have stayed, I’m 101 per cent staying. The problem is that that conversation never happened. The next day, I was at the hotel, relaxing at 10.30 in the morning. Suddenly, someone from his team calls me: ‘Alex wants to tell you to take care of your plane ticket, find it yourself, and pay for it. You can go to Miami’.
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“This triggered everything; I froze. Two hours later, I reacted, blocked him on my phone, blocked his wife too, packed my suitcase, checked out of the hotel, and said goodbye. By the way, minutes later, I also sent the same message I sent him to all the team members so they would know what I had sent Alex. I have a response from each of them, they all congratulated me.”
Puerta still doesn’t agree with what Davidovich Fokina said about the end of their partnership, and says his parting message to the Spanish star included advice on how he could improve as a player. The 47-year-old also revealed that they had exchanged some friendly messages at the end.
However, Davidovich Fokina’s version of events was different. After losing to Thiago Agustin Tirante in four sets on Wednesday, the 21st seed claimed he and the rest of the team had been blindsided. “After the match against Dzumhur, we had lunch and then I went to do some recovery. He said he wasn’t feeling well and was going back to the hotel. Up to that point, everything was normal. Nothing happened between the team and us,” he explained.
“And in the afternoon, two or three hours later, he sent me a message saying he wasn’t going to continue and all that. And the thing is, he didn’t tell anyone, not even the team. He just got on a flight and went to Miami without saying a word to us. Then I heard he’d done it a couple of times before with other players, so it seems like it’s normal for him.”
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