Who Is Paula Badosa’s Coach?

Last Updated on April 27, 2022

Paula Badosa is a New York-born Spanish tennis player. After winning the Girls’ singles title at French Open in 2015, she turned Pro the same year. Since then, she has won 3 WTA Titles (including a WTA 1000 title) and risen up to a career-high ranking of 2 which is also her current ranking. Her 65%-win percentage doesn’t accurately represent her current rise and potential to reach greater heights. After a promising start in the Junior circuit, it took her long to make a mark in the Professional circuit. She had to fight with mental stress and anxiety early in her career. Now she has stabilized her ship and is looking forward to dominate the women’s singles category under the able guidance of Jorge Garcia and with a help of a dedicated team.

Jorge Garcia Current Coach

🎾👨‍🏫 Hablamos con Jorge García, entrenador de @paulabadosa, en el último tramo de @carrusel

🗣️‼️ “Paula está muy bien, con muchas ganas y confianza para afrontar lo que viene mañana”

💪 “Es muy difícil todo lo que está sucediendo… no nos lo planteábamos llegar hasta aquí” pic.twitter.com/9cmQmq0zRM

— Carrusel Deportivo (@carrusel) October 16, 2021

Jorge Garcia is her current coach and he has also worked with her in junior stage of her career in 2011. They worked together for four years till she turned 18. David Antona continues as her physical trainer and Dani de la Serna as her psychologist & dietician who were also part of her team when Javier Marti was her coach. Antona is a two-time Spanish high jump champion (2000 and 2006) and he also trains basketball player Willy Hernangómez.

Paula has been seen to grow immensely under her new coach and her performances have been outstanding. She won Indian Wells defeating two-times Australia Open champion Victoria Azarenka in finals in 2021 and Sydney International in 2022 by defeating reigning French Open champion Barbora Krejčíková in three sets in the final. She also reached the fourth round of the Australian Open before losing to Madison Keys. These results depict her growth on Hard Court after her success on Clay Court. Previously, she broke into the WTA Top 20 on October 18, 2021 and into Top 10 on November 8, 2021. She also qualified for her first Year-end WTA Finals where she advanced to the Semifinals. She ended the Year 2021 with rank 8^th and was also nominated for 2021 WTA Most Improved Player of the Year.

Junior Circuit (2011-2015)

During that time, she was also training under Pancho Alvarino along with Garcia. Alvarino runs a Tennis Academy which has produced players like Former World No. 1 Marat Safin and Dinara Safina. He later opened the TenisVal Academy along with Jose Altur where Bedosa was also trained in her junior days. The Academy has trained players like David Ferrer and 2009 ATP World Tour Finals winner Nikolay Davydenko. Badosa became a former junior world No. 8 and she won three singles which includes French Open & one doubles titles on the Junior circuit.

Past Coaches

Javier Marti (September 2020-August 2021)

Javier Marti started coaching her in September 2020. He is also a Spanish tennis player and still active in ATP Challenger and ITF circuit. He reached career-high ranking of 170 and 201 in Men singles and doubles’ respectively on ATP Tour in April 2012. He has won 1 ITF Title and 18 ITF Futures. Clay is also his favorite surface which is a strong reason behind his association with Bedosa as her coach.

It was under his mentorship that she won her maiden ATP when she defeated Ana Konjuh in the finals of Belgrade Open in 2021. This win was a part of her run after recovering from COVID-19 in January 2021 and isolating herself for a month. She had a great clay court season (win-loss ratio of 15-2) where she defeated world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty in Charleston Open, reached her first WTA 1000 semifinal in Madrid. She also made it to the quarters of French Open & Tokyo Olympics (Women Singles’) and Fourth round of Wimbledon. Her French Open run is her best Grand Slam performance so far, going one level up from her previous years’ performance of reaching Last 16 at Roland Garros only. During the 2020 tournament which took place in September that year because of worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, she also defeated former champions Jelena Ostapenko and former finalist Sloane Stephens.

She ended the year 2020 with Rank 70^th which was her second consecutive Top 100 finish after slipping one spot from her then career-high rank 69 in October that year. She split with Marti in August 2021 after she was knocked out of Canadian Open by Rebecca Marino in Round of 16 and played a few tournaments including the US Open without any coach.

Xavi Budo (September 2018- August 2020)

After parting ways with Jorge Garcia, she did not have any coach for three years between 2015 to 2018. A couple of seasons were injury plagues and she was training in Xavi Budo’s Tennis Academy.

It was only in September 2018 when she appointed Budo as her coach and he remained her coach till her exit from US Open in 2020. Before this project, he worked with Carla Suarez Navarro for 10 years who once reached World No. 6 and 11 in singles and doubles respectively under his guidance. He provided her support, both on and off the court, to come out of mental health stress which proved to be vital in her climbing up in the rankings. 

She started qualifying for the main draws of all the four Grand Slams starting with Australia Open 2019. She also reached semifinal of Palermo Open and Karlsruhe Open. She also ended her season in Top 100 for the first time in 2019 with a rank of 97.

Paula Badosa’s achievements with different coaches

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