How good can a young tennis player really become? Even after more than 30 years as a coach on the ATP Tour, Vedran Martic knows there is no simple answer.
The Croatian has helped generations of players develop, from Goran Ivanisevic and Marin Cilic to Karen Khachanov, whom he is currently coaching. He has watched Khachanov go from a junior to an ATP Masters 1000 champion and, along the way, learned that coaching is less about predicting a player's ceiling and more about understanding the individual, improving every part of their game and adapting to what they need.
“Many times I was with this generation of [Daniil] Medvedev, Karen and [Andrey] Rublev. Sometimes Medvedev’s father would ask me, ‘Vedran, do you believe that they can become so good?’,” Martic told ATPTour.com. “Actually, it's a very, very difficult question to answer in tennis because some things are very hidden: How a player executes under pressure, how a player plays the big points, how a player will develop, which players he will choose to practise with.”
Martic's own coaching journey began with Ivanisevic. After nine years coaching in Germany and travelling around the Tour, he began working with his countryman full time in 1996 and stayed with him for four and a half years. Their highlight came when Ivanisevic reached the 1998 Wimbledon final.
“That was an unbelievable experience, for sure, to come to the final of such an event,” Martic recalls. “When you come on the first day to a Grand Slam, there are so many players. Then you come to the last day and there are just two players.
“We asked them to open Aorangi for us to warm up because Goran liked this. He was superstitious about always warming up on the same court, taking the same shower… Sampras was just a little bit better in the final, or a little bit more fresh.”
Martic was not with Ivanisevic when the Croatian finally won Wimbledon in 2001. By then, he had returned to Split to raise his family and run a small academy. But the years alongside Ivanisevic had already given Martic an education that would shape the rest of his coaching career.
A big part of that came from Bob Brett, Ivanisevic's main coach until 1995. Brett had previously coached Boris Becker to No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings and was one of the most respected coaches in the game. Martic travelled and trained with Brett and Ivanisevic, watching how he approached every part of the game.
“I mostly learned everything from Bob Brett because he was Goran’s main coach at the time. I think I learned a lot about this job from him,” Martic said. “For me, he was the best coach that I met in my life.
“While I was travelling with them, I saw how he was preparing matches tactically. He had a lot of knowledge about physical preparation, tactical preparation and technical preparation. I think Bob Brett was a really complete coach.”
Those lessons stayed with Martic when he returned to developing younger players in Split. He coached WTA player Petra Martic as a teenager, worked with other promising juniors and later coached Marin Cilic, while also taking on the role of Davis Cup captain for Croatia.
Khachanov arrived in Split as a junior at around 16, and although Martic worked with him for less than two years before they went their separate ways, he continued to follow his development. When they reunited in 2018, with Khachanov ranked No. 47, Martic already knew him well and had watched him develop alongside many of the players who would become the leading names of his generation.
“It's always the same. The player needs to improve in all aspects of the game — technically, tactically and physically,” Martic said. “Some things the player brings with himself, too.
“Every player is different, and coaches need to adapt to certain players to see what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. Try to improve the weaknesses, but at the same time make the strengths as good as possible.”
Later in 2018, Khachanov put that development together in spectacular fashion. The then-22-year-old defeated four consecutive Top-10 opponents — John Isner, Alexander Zverev, Dominic Thiem and Novak Djokovic — to win his first ATP Masters 1000 title in Paris before finishing the season as the World No. 11.
“When Karen was 22, he finished the year No. 11 and moved from 47 to 11 in one year,” Martic explained. “Finishing the season by winning Paris indoors was a really big tournament. He won against four Top-10 players and we had a really good run in Paris indoors. This is a great tournament in Paris-Bercy and it was a really unbelievable experience.”
Martic and Khachanov have not always worked together. Though they are back together this year — with Khachanov reaching his third major semi-final at the US Open — their careers have taken them in different directions at different times, but the relationship has remained.
“We always had a great relationship from the period we started. Although we stopped, we were always talking on the phone and we met up,” Martic said. “We always had a great relationship. It didn't matter whether we were together or not.
“He's a little bit like my fourth child. He's part of the family.”
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