Tennis legend Andre Agassi has returned sporadically to the sport since retiring in 2006.
The American worked with Novak Djokovic between 2017 and 2018, a period which brought the star no Grand Slams.
Seven years later, and Agassi inspired Team World to a shock Laver Cup victory over Team Europe in San Francisco.
In 2017, Agassi named three stars who he would have liked to coach at a time when he wasn’t prepared for a full-time coaching role.
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In an interview with The Guardian, Agassi named Gael Monfils, Nick Kyrgios, and John Isner as three non-Grand Slam winners he would be interested in coaching.
“I can point to people that would be fun and interesting. To me there’s a gap between what [John] Isner, [Gaël] Monfils and Kyrgios do and what I think they could do.
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“That’s interesting and exciting but if they don’t want to be coached it would be short-lived and painful. I would pay to watch all of those guys play but it’s impossible to say whether I could coach them.”
Isner reached a career ranking high of world number eight, but he consistently failed to reach the latter stages of Grand Slams.
Monfils, meanwhile, is widely considered one of the most talented players to never win a Grand Slam. The Frenchman was one of the casualties of the ‘big three’ dominance in the 2000s and 2010s.
Kyrgios never cracked the top 10, but he did reach the Wimbledon final in 2022. The star’s mentality and a run of bad injuries, scuppered his chances of reaching the top of the sport.
Why Andre Agassi ultimately didn’t coach Nick Kyrgios
Plenty of ex-players have shared their willingness to coach Kyrgios, such was his talent during the prime of his career.
The Australian went without a coach for much of his career after splitting with Jonas Bjorkman during the 2017 season.
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Agassi explained why he didn’t work with Kyrgios, despite expressing an interest in coaching him around the same time.
He said: “I would not have any room now with my kids, who are 15 and 13. So the answer is no. I wouldn’t be able to do it because I couldn’t do it the way I would need to do it.”
The likes of Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Pete Sampras have all offered to work with Kyrgios over the years.
