Who Is Katerina Siniakova’s Coach in 2022?

Last Updated on October 7, 2022

A six-time Grand Slam champion in doubles, Olympic Games golden medalist, Fed Cup champion and one of the best players on WTA Tour, is Czech tennis player Katerina Siniakova.

Katerina Siniakova was born on 10^th May 1996 in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic in a family of mixed origin. Her father Dmitry, who is Russian, is a former boxer and currently her coach, and her mother Hana who is Czech, works as an accountant. She has a younger brother Daniel who is also a tennis player. Katerina started her tennis career in TK Tennis-Centrum Hradec Kralove at age of five. In her young ages she was mentored by WTA legend and her compatriot Helena Sukova, who post-retirement co-founded the Kids and Junior Tennis Advancement Organization in the Czech Republic. Later, she continued her tennis development at TK Sparta Praha. Her favorite surface is hard-court and favorite tournament Australian Open. While growing up she was admiring Maria Sharapova. Katarina is a music lover and a fan of Taylor Swift. Her favorite city is Paris. Since the Covid-19 pandemic she is in a relationship with a fellow tennis player Tomas Machac.     

Who Is Katerina Siniakova’s Current Coach?

Although he participated in all Katerina’s training, both tennis and conditioning, since her first step at the tennis court, since June 2019 her coach on regular basis is her father Dmitry Siniakov.

Dmitry Siniakov

Dmitry Siniakov was born on 4th September 1971 in Moscow, Russia. In youth he was training box but didn’t have any singificant sucess. He moved to Czech Republic at age of 25, met his wife Hana and stayed to live there. They took Katerina to sports from an early age and were thinking about what kind of sport she could do as a girl, to develop well physically. Katerina has been skiing, rollerblading and cycling since the age of three. But since he used to play tennis recreationaly and took his dauther with him, she showed affinity for that sport and started actively training. Dmitry was guiding her through every step of her career, but since surprising breakup with coach Ian Hugghes in the middle od season 2019, he is her head coach and mentor. Besides coaching his daugther, he runs a fur business.

“We are together almost all the time, when at training we deal with tennis and trying to improve every aspect of her game. As soon as she gets on the court, my role ends. I just keep my fingers crossed and wish her the best performance and ideally win.” said Dmitry.

While coached by her father, in the second half of season 2019 Siniakova continued with struggle in singles, but in doubles she won Canadian Open and Linz Open and finished year as World No.7 in doubles and No.58 in singles. She had strong start of season 2020, by winning the title at Shenzhen Open in the opening week, but then came the break due to Covid-19 and at the end of the season she finished as World No.64 in singles and No.8 in doubles.

Next season was best of her career at that time. In doubles, she won Melbourne Gippsland Trophy, Madrid Open, Rolland Garros for the second time, Olympic golden medal, Moscow Open and WTA Finals. After these outstanding results she ended the year as the World No.1 doubles player.   

This season, despite the fact that is not over yet, has already surpassed the previous one. She began the year by winning the doubles title at the Melbourne Summer Set 2, won Berlin Open and later she managed to win three Grand slam titles at Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open and to keep the No.1 ranking in doubles. In september, at Slovenia Open in Portoroz, Katerina won her first singles WTA title since 2017. She also won the ITF tournament Grodzisk Mazowiecki in singles.

Former Katerina Siniakova’s coaches

Starting from her teenage days, for eight long years, her coach was Daniel Filjo.

Daniel Filjo

During his coaching career he changed many tennis clubs and was coach of a different players mainly juniors, who are now part of the WTA tour. He was coach at TC Bolton in England, TK Olymp Prague, TK Agrofert Prostejov and since 2009 until present, at TK Sparta Prague. For eight years from her junior days was Katerina Siniakova’s coach who currently is World No.1 player in doubles.

Mentored by Filjo, Siniakova began playing on the ITF Women’s Circuit in 2012 where in a doubles competition she won her first ITF title at Jablonec Open. Next year she won her first ITF singles title at Frauenfeld Open and made debut on the WTA Tour. Also she won the girls doubles titles at the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open in 2013 with fellow Czech Barbora Krejcikova. During 2014 Katka made her Grand Slam debut, won her first WTA doubles title at Tashkent Open and finished the season in top 100 players in the World.

Katerina continued her progress in 2015 and reached the top 50 in doubles and the next year she had her top-50 debut in singles. In this period she won Trnava Open and Prague Open in doubles.

“Our first tournament at the age of thirteen was in Moscow and it was a flop, but she turned the following tournament in France into the final. Together we went through many tournaments and won many titles. At tournaments, sometimes someone joked that we have been together more than David Kotyza and Petra Kvitova.” recalls Filjo.

After parting ways with Filjo, Katerina was mentored by another compatriot, Frantisek Cermak.

Frantisek Cermak

Frantisek “Cermis” Cermak was born on 14th November 1976 in Valtice, Czech Republic. He began playing tennis at age seven with his father who was an office manager. His mother was a bookkeeper in a local hospital. He has one younger brother who is a policeman. Frantisek played hockey at age three to eleven, before concentrating full-time on tennis. While growing up he admired Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg. His favorite surface is clay and considered serve as his best shot. He turned pro in 1998 and during eighteen active years he won 31 doubles titles on the ATP tour, won the 2013 French Open in mixed doubles and in singles he won one Challenger and ten Futures titles. After retirement, he coached Petra Kvitova for five months during 2016 and also was coach of Lucie Safarova and Kristyna Pliskova.

In the short period coaching Siniakova, she reached her first Grand Slam doubles final at 2017 US Open, played final at Shenzhen Open both in singles and in doubles. In April 2018 they ended their collaboration.

One month before 2018 Wimbledon Championship she started working with Englishman, Iain Hughes.

Iain Hughes

Iain Hughes is 49 years old tennis coach from Ewell, England. He did not have significant career as a player, and he is tennis coach since 2009. He enjoys playing golf and watching football. Iain has held former roles as LTA (UK) Men’s Travelling Coach, ITF Development Travelling Coach and a member of the ‘Support Team’ for Andy Murray. He is former coach of Elina Svitolina, Belinda Bencic, Sofya Zhuk, Katerina Siniakova.

He worked with Svitolina while earning singles titles at 2014 Baku, 2015 Marrakech and 2016 Kuala Lumpur, as well as a doubles title at 2014 Istanbul. He led her to WTA singles ranking of No.13, becoming the highest ranked Ukrainian at the time.

From July 2017 – June 2018, he helped Bencic improve her ranking from No.318 to No.61.

While coaching Siniakova, she captured the doubles titles at Wimbledon and Sydney, end season 2018 as World No.1 player in doubles, but unexpectedly in the middle of season 2019 he ended the collaboration and started working with Anastasia Potapova.

“It was a bit unexpected for me, he probably got a better offer, so it was quite surprising for me. I think it’s a bit unethical when those players offer cooperation to someone who is engaged. It shouldn’t happen.” said Katerina after their split up.

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Katerina Siniakova’s achievements with different coaches

We have collected in the table the data about the trophies won by Katerina Siniakova under the guidance of various coaches.