Fort Worth (United States) (AFP) – “Fly with Caro”: the invitation to travel is already a while ago and, despite a long air hole, the French Caroline Garcia finally reconnected with the heights of tennis reached in 2017, winning her finest title at the Masters at 29, the reward of a total family investment.
Louis-Paul Garcia has not been his daughter’s coach since May 2021, he who has been since the start of his professional career, which began ten years earlier. But the triumph of his offspring is obviously also his and their embrace, although modest in Fort Worth on Monday November 7, 2022, transpired from a very strong emotion necessarily traversed by memories.
He improvised as a coach from the first racket shots of “Caro”, who first tried dancing and basketball, giving up his position as sales director, while going up with Mylène, the mother, a real estate agency , in order to have the strong back to try to make a champion. Like other fathers before him, such as Richard Williams with Venus and Serena, and avoiding the pangs of a tumultuous relationship, from which many have suffered (Capriati, Pierce or Bartoli).
This change was a tough decision for Garcia. While agreeing that she needed to start over on new bases, after four difficult years, between crisis of confidence, tennis in perdition and recurring physical concerns, she endeavored to ardently defend this father, according to her unfairly ” criticized over his coaching abilities “.
” He didn’t get the respect he deserved. Frankly, taking an 11 year old girl and bringing her to 4th in the world, I don’t know many who have done it “, she said in mid-September to The Team.
“What a player! »
After several months of recharging his batteries in Spanish lands, those of his paternal roots, a fruitful collaboration with Bertrand Perret began in December 2021, at the initiative of Louis-Paul, now in charge of a managerial role.
The former coach of the Chinese Peng Shuai and the Tunisian Ons Jabeur will consolidate the Lyonnaise in her playing identity, pushing her to play even more forward, attacking the ball very early, returning inside from the court and going up to the net somehow.
But returning to the peaks, five years after a semi-final of the Masters, which came to punctuate a euphoric autumn 2017 marked by two titles at the WTA 1000 in Wuhan and Beijing, is not immediate for this discreet woman, who has been raising great expectations for a long time. Longer.
As such, there are praises that are all the harder to digest as they come from great champions.
Especially when you’re only 17.
“ The girl who plays against Maria Sharapova will be world No.1 one day. Caroline Garcia, what a player! This is where you heard it first “, Andy Murray tweeted on May 26, 2011. It was during a second round match at Roland-Garros, that the Frenchwoman – who still played mainly on the ITF circuit (3rd division) – ended up losing against the Russian star, after winning the first set.
Flamboyant summer
Flattered at the time, she would later agree that this tweet did her a disservice: “ I put pressure on myself, telling myself that I wanted to play like that again, but when you try to do it, it’s even worse. »
Three years later, in Bogota, she won the first of her eleven titles. On her return from Colombia, for a Fed Cup accession match in the United States, she hovers. She even flies on the court, says Patrick Bordier, physiotherapist for the France team. Birth certificate of a celebration – arms outstretched like wings when she wins -, and of this famous “Fly with Caro”.
A promise that Garcia finally keeps in 2022, taking off again despite a delicate first half, the fault of a plantar aponeurosis, which she ends up getting rid of with the help of physiotherapist and physical trainer Laura Legoupil.
His second coronation with Kristina Mladenovic in doubles at Roland-Garros, after 2016, heralds a flamboyant summer. She won in Bad Homburg, in Warsaw by eliminating world No.1 Iga Swiatek in front of her home crowd, in Cincinnati by qualifying, then reached the semi-finals of the US Open.
Garcia, however, did not escape the phenomenon of decompensation the following weeks. And does not see coming the departure of Bertrand Perret, who invokes extra-sporting problems.
The Masters is looking pretty bad. But it’s not knowing “Caro”, now sure of her game, mature enough to stay the course, and who, challenge taken up, like Amélie Mauresmo in 2005, takes the plane to better land in her dad’s arms.