Pat Cash is not afraid to hold back his views on topics that mean something to him.
Cash has recently criticised a decision that was made at Wimbledon this year, calling it ‘mind boggling’.
That is not the only rule the 1987 Wimbledon champion believes needs changing, with Cash naming two other things he thinks tennis needs to change.
The Australian is most famous for his days as a player, but Cash has now spoken about something he experienced as a coach.
Pat Cash calls out the WTA for their lack of care for players’ wellbeing
Cash coached former world number 12 Qiang Wang in 2021 and 2022, when there were still some travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The former world number four has been very open about his own mental health struggles, and spoke to Tennis Channel about the lack of support provided on the WTA Tour when he was coaching Chinese player Wang.
“I was coaching a Chinese player Wang Qiang or she’s known as Q Wang,” began Cash. “She’s retired now, but we travelled together for a couple of years and the WTA were an absolute disgraceful embarrassment to say that they care about players’ wellbeing.
“You know, I wrote letter after letter trying to get help for us and the team. You know, this was during the sort of lockdown era where we were, you know, struggling to…she was struggling to get home. They were very poor and I think as tennis associations, not just the professional ones but you know governing bodies they have a…they need a wellbeing care program for players coming through and juniors, and I don’t see it, I just don’t see it.
“And you say well when they’re older they’ve always got somebody to talk to, that’s not good enough, that is absolutely not good enough and I think there needs to be, there really needs to be some hard looking at some of these…You know the USTA, the Tennis Australia and these sort of people who build these players up, give them everything and they get injured and have a bad year and they go, ‘Well, good luck with your life.’ And they leave you go and that’s just, that’s really wrong. So, I think I would like to see a change in that area of mental wellbeing for young people.”
Is Pat Cash currently coaching anyone?
Coaching Wang was not Cash’s first time coaching, having also helped Greg Rusedski, Mark Philippoussis and CoCo Vandeweghe.
Despite his negative experience mentoring Wang, it appears that Cash has not completely been put off from coaching altogether.
Cash was spotted in the Wimbledon player box for young Canadian talent Gabriel Diallo for his second round match against Taylor Fritz.
Many had speculated why Cash was in Diallo’s player box, with the Australian confirming that he had been helping him out prior to Wimbledon in his interview with Tennis Channel.
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