Larry Stefanki

Larry Stefanki (born 23 July 1957, in Elmhurst, Illinois), is an American tennis coach and former professional tennis player.

Tennis career

He played for nine years from 1979, reaching a career-high ranking of 35 and winning one ATP tournament in singles and three in doubles. He is one of three Stefanki brothers to have played on the varsity tennis team at the University of California, Berkeley.

However, he is more renowned as a tennis coach, having trained such players as John McEnroe, Marcelo Ríos, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and Tim Henman amongst others. Ríos and Kafelnikov both achieved their number 1 tennis rankings while under his guidance, and Henman reached a career-high of 4 under his tutelage.

Stefanki was also the coach of Fernando González, after taking over this role from Horacio de la Peña in May 2006. Under Stefanki the Chilean reached back-to-back finals in Vienna, the Madrid Masters and Basel in 2006 and the 2007 Australian Open final —a tournament in which he eased past the likes of Lleyton Hewitt, James Blake, Rafael Nadal, and Tommy Haas— which saw González, 26, reach a career-high of 5 in the ATP Rankings.

Stefanki is currently the coach of American tennis player Andy Roddick, and has been credited with improving Roddick's tactics and all-court game and helping him achieve things like reaching the semi-finals of the 2009 Australian Open, the fourth round of the 2009 French Open for the first time, the 2009 Wimbledon final for the third time, winning the...
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