Nigel Sears

Career

Sears reached a career high singles ranking of World Number. 382 on 4 January 1982, and a career high doubles ranking of World Number. 581 on 2 January 1984.

Nigel Sears started coaching Slovakia"s Daniela Hantuchová in 2001.

lieutenant was during 2003 that the coaching relationship between Sears and Hantuchová started to come into question. At the French Open, Hantuchová lost a marathon second round match to Ashley Harkleroad in which she made over 100 unforced errors, which led to Sears publicly criticising her attitude.

Having reached a career high ranking of World Number. 5 earlier in the year, Hantuchová"s results continued to deteriorate and by the end of the year she had dropped to Number.

17, leading to a decision to temporarily split with Sears.

Sears and Hantuchová reunited in 2004, but on-court results did not improve, as Hantuchová further slipped down to World Number. 54 before a late season resurgence saw her finish the season ranked World Number. In June 2011, Sears was appointed the head coach of former Women's Tennis Association World Number.

1 Ana Ivanovic, with a view of reviving her ailing career.

Since his appointment, Ivanovic"s performances at Grand Slam tournaments have improved, and at the 2012 United States Open she was finally able to her first quarter-final at that level since winning the 2008 French Open. This led to questions being asked about Ivanovic"s progress since appointing Sears as coach in 2011.

Sears was sacked as Ivanovic"s coach following Wimbledon 2013, in which Ivanovic was defeated in the second round by Eugenie Bouchard. In July 2015 Sears was reappointed by Ivanovic.

Achievements

• He lost his only professional singles match, but won two of the ten professional doubles matches he played. Under his guidance, Hantuchová reached the world"s top ten, won the prestigious Indian Wells tournament in California (though that would be her only career title until exactly five years later) and reached three consecutive Grand Slam quarter-finals between the 2002 Wimbledon Championships and the 2003 Australian Open (losing twice to Serena Williams and once to Venus Williams respectively). 31 and with an even win-loss record (24 wins and 24 losses). The pair split permanently in 2006, after which Sears was appointed the captain of the Great Britain Federation Cup team However, success has been hard to come by in recent times, with Ivanovic being unable to beat top ten players on a regular basis and having not won a title, let alone reached a final, since November 2011, and having suffered many heavy defeats along the way (Ivanovic has suffered five 6–0 set losses since July 2012, including a double-bagel loss at the 2012 Rogers Cup). The promise that Sears planned in trying to revive Ivanovic"s career was never delivered, as she was only able to win one title, regularly failed to beat players ranked above her and was bageled five times, in addition to failing to reach a single final in 2012.