After four recent defeats, Angelique Kerber will face the upcoming tennis tournaments in Asia with a new coach. The 47-year-old ex-pro Dirk Dier will take care of the German number one from now on. The management of the three-time Grand Slam tournament winner confirmed on Sunday the cooperation, which is initially planned on an interim basis. First, the "Bild am Sonntag" had reported on the personality.
Kerber had split from her coach Rainer Schüttler after completing her second round at Wimbledon in July. She traveled to the US Open without a coach. After she had also retired in New York in the first round, the call for a new coach among the critics had become louder. But Kerber had said she did not want to be pressured.
Daniel Karmann / DPA
Dirk Dier (right) and Angelique Kerber know each other from Fed Cup times
Dier and Kerber know each other from the German Fed Cup team, the national team of women's tennis. Dier has worked there for years as an assistant to Barbara Rittner and now Jens Gerlach. For the work with Kerber Dier is temporarily exempted from the German Tennis Federation (DTB). "It's nice to see that the DTB is so accommodating here," said Aljoscha Thron, Kerber's manager. However, Dier has little experience with the care of top players on an individual level. For a while he was supervising double-specialist Anna-Lena Grönefeld, for a short time he was also traveling with Andrea Petkovic.
Kerber will return to the tour at the WTA tournament in Zhengzhou next week. The 31-year-old received a wildcard for the new event in China. There she is set to five. "It's always something special to be part of a new event and see a new city," said Kerber, who meets Alison Riske in the first round on Tuesday at the $ 1.5 million event.
