Google News Andy Roddick: "Coco Gauff's father is rare, other players' fathers are psychopaths"
by LORENZO CIOTTI
How important are parents for an athlete? We have recently seen how Jannik Sinner's family was instrumental in raising a mature and wise champion like the young Italian. Going back in time, it's easy to understand how integral King Richard was to the careers of Venus and Serena Williams.
And recently, Andy Roddick expressed his admiration for Coco Gauff's father, Corey.
In the episode of the podcast Served with Andy Roddick, the former American champion Andy Roddick defined some of these psychopathic and irresponsible fathers not only as coaches but as parents.
But, at the same time, he praised what Coco Gauff's father had done. Roddick, who served as the US Open winner at the Australian Open, said Coco Gauff's father was exceptional in that he understood it was necessary to step back and allow his daughter's coaches to take care of her growth.
"Corey Gauff was able to take a step aside"
"Corey Gauff understood that it was necessary to take a step aside to allow Coco's coaches to take care of the growth of the young tennis player. He was here and his ability to not be the center of attention, he doesn't need the information to come from him, that's rare and it seems like something that should be very obvious and it's not. In the history of our sport no it is.
There are a lot of cautionary anecdotes, and I won't name them out of respect for the people who find themselves on the bad side of those cautionary anecdotes, but it's been rampant in our sport. Also, it's been talked about quite a bit, but it needs to be talked about more.
Especially in our sport, where there has been a negative history of fathers of tennis players who have been psychopathic and irresponsible towards the human being as a whole. Not tennis, but the total human being."
As mentioned, Brad Gilbert, coach of the young US star, asked Roddick for help to improve the serve of the world number 3 in view of her campaign at the Australian Open.