By Chris Oddo | Thursday March 10, 2016
Petra Kvitova is enjoying her life without a coach, at least for now.
Photo Source: Christopher Levy
Recently engaged and in good health, Petra Kvitova is feeling free at the BNP Paribas Open. The 26-year-old returns to Indian Wells to make her seventh appearance with a come-what-may attitude about this grueling stretch of the season.
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“I’m still without the coach. I have a hitting partner here, and I don’t have a coach,” Kvitova told reporters at a media roundtable on Wednesday. “I’m okay for the moment. I’m not really pushing myself to find a coach now, so I’m taking time.”
Kvitova, who revealed that her fiancé Radek Meidl got down on one knee and proposed to her while she was back home in the Czech Republic last December (she showed us an elegant ring and one lucky photographer took a picture as Kvitova smiled and seemed to be wondering, “are you really taking a picture of my ring?) is hopeful that she can get her majestic, imposing game on track at some point in 2016.
“I have been with David for seven years and I need a little bit of a break,” she said of her productive relationship with former coach David Kotyza, which ended after the Australian Open this year. “I have had a month without a coach, and I think it’s good.”
She added: “I think it has been a long time to be with David. All the things we did were really working. We had two Grand Slams and he did a great job. But I think I still need to improve a lot of things. My aggressive game I think can be more consistent and trying to improve the serve and the first shots in the rallies.”
When asked if she minded not having anybody push her through grueling practice time, she just smiled and said “I don’t miss that.”
Kvitova, who sports a 9-6 lifetime record at Indian Wells, and a 2-4 record on the season, says she is actually enjoying the added responsibility that comes with coaching herself.
“I feel more free, thinking by myself about the game,” she said. “It’s a new experience as well. I’m doing the practices. It’s good. I think it makes me think more about the game.”
Despite the dismal start to 2016, Kvitova thinks it’s nothing that a few good matches can’t cure.
“I need matches to play,” she said. “In the practice everything is fine, but unfortunately the matches are different with the nerves and with everything around, so I just need a little bit of matches. If I have some matches I will feel more confident and I think I’m missing that.”
The Czech, who turned 26 on Monday, will open her bid in the desert with a second-round matchup with Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic. The pair have never met on the ATP Tour.