Italian Open star reveals ‘sad’ coaching split despite breakthrough run
Alejandro Tabilo has detailed his recent coaching split, revealing the surprise that he has been able to stay ‘mentally stable’ for his run to the Italian Open semi-finals.
Tabilo had never previously competed at the Masters 1000 tournament in Rome, but has beaten the likes of world No.1 Novak Djokovic, Karen Khachanov and most recently Zhizhen Zhang to achieve his best result at this level.
After beating Zhang, the Chilean spoke about how it felt to reach this milestone in the Italian capital, “Just getting here, first time playing Rome, never thought I’d be here right now. It’s just a crazy feeling. It’s been crazy two weeks.
“There’s still another match, so I got to regroup, keep thinking about my tennis, rest well, come out on Friday with everything I got. It’s been a crazy, crazy ride.”
Despite achieving his most successful ever result at a tournament of this level, Tabilo has had to deal with the split with long-term coach Guile Gomez that came after he lost in the first round of the Madrid Open.
“There are just a few problems with kind of logistics with the coaches ’cause we have, like, a pretty big team,” explained Tabilo. “We just couldn’t see eye-to-eye to some things.
“It was a good split. We both decided it was best for us. I mean, with my coaches and everything, we’re still okay. Just we decided to split. I’ve been without a coach since right after Madrid.”
Tabilo suggested that the split between his Gomez as amicable, but also revealed the sadness that he has been feeling since parting ways after almost a decade together.
“It was pretty sad. I had a lot of phone calls, a lot of talks with my family, with my friends. They helped a lot,” detailed the 26-year-old. “It’s been pretty crazy that I was able to keep my mental still pretty stable.
“I’ve been playing loose. We’ve been trying to not even think too much about tactics or anything. We’ve just been playing the game. I’ve been swinging. Lately, it’s been working.”
Since splitting with Gomez, Tabilo has won an ATP Challenger title in Aix-en-Provence and has now achieved his best Masters 1000 result at the Italian Open.
3 – Alejandro Tabilo is the third Chilean player in the Open Era to reach the semi-finals at the Internazionali d’Italia after Marcelo Rios (1997 and 1998) and Fernando Gonzalez (2007 and 2009). Flagship.#IBI24 | @InteBNLdItalia @atptour @ATPMediaInfo pic.twitter.com/zFBj6Tn8LD
— OptaAce (@OptaAce) May 15, 2024
Tabilo will look to become the first Chilean to reach the singles final in Rome since Fernando Gonzalez in 2007, when he takes on third seed Alexander Zverev tomorrow.
Inside the baseline…
It has been an outstanding Italian Open for Alejandro Tabilo, who has really backed up his incredible win over Novak Djokovic earlier in the tournament. Tabilo has never actually played in the main draw of Roland Garros before, but when the tournament comes around later this month will actually be seeded at a current live ranking of No.25.
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