Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi have been honored with the prestigious Coach of the Year award in the 2023 ATP Awards, recognizing their remarkable coaching work with Italian tennis prodigy Jannik Sinner.
In an exceptional year for Sinner, the 22-year-old athlete claimed his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Toronto and impressively made it to the championship match at the Nitto ATP Finals. Notably, Sinner also secured his position as the first Italian male player to conclude a season within the Top 5 of the Pepper stone ATP Rankings.
Under the guidance of Cahill and Vagnozzi, the World No. 4 amassed a notable record of 64 wins and 15 losses throughout the year. His achievements included reaching his inaugural major semi-final at Wimbledon and clinching four tour-level trophies. Sinner’s exceptional performance was further acknowledged as he received the Fans’ Favourite Award earlier in the week.
Vagnozzi, who has been associated with Sinner since February 2022, expressed his delight in coaching the young talent, citing Sinner’s positive character and eagerness to improve as aspects that make coaching him a gratifying experience.
“I’ve known Jannik from when he was 14. He played against one of my junior players, so I saw him for the first time there,” Vagnozzi shared with atptour.com. “It’s really nice to coach him because he’s a really funny guy. He has a really good character. It’s easy to coach Jannik also because he wants to improve a lot and go on the court always with a smile and everything, so for a coach it’s really good.”
Meanwhile, Cahill, renowned for coaching former World No. 1s Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt, joined Team Sinner in June 2022. His focus on enhancing Sinner’s mental fortitude has been a pivotal aspect of their collaboration.
“My role is more about the experience and how to help him mentally in these big moments, and to make sure that we’re working on the right stuff that eventually is going to get him to the place we want to be,” Cahill explained earlier this season.
Both Cahill and Vagnozzi were nominated among other esteemed coaches for the Coach of the Year accolade. This category’s winner is determined through votes cast by fellow coaches in the tennis community.
Additionally, Sinner has been nominated for two player-voted awards: Most Improved Player of the Year and the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award, with winners set to be announced later in the week.
Jannik Sinner in 2023
WWWWWWWLWW At the moment ranked no.4 (career-high), the Italian played his last match on the 26th of November when he beat world no.12 Alex De Minaur 6-3 6-0 in the Rubber 2 of the Davis Cup (draw).
Until now, during this year the Italian has managed to achieve a 64-15 match record. Jannik has won 4 titles in 2023 in Montpellier, Toronto, Beijing and Vienna. Jannik was the runner-up in Rotterdam, Miami and the Nitto ATP Finals.
