{"id":21991,"date":"2013-08-19T13:30:42","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T11:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/sharapova-splits-with-tennis-coach-connors\/"},"modified":"2013-08-19T13:30:42","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T11:30:42","slug":"sharapova-splits-with-tennis-coach-connors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/sharapova-splits-with-tennis-coach-connors\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharapova splits with tennis coach Connors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=13838\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13838\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-13838 \" alt=\"The odd partnership between Maria Sharapova and Jimmy Connors is over after just one match. Photo: Reuters\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/a22be_9054825.jpg\" width=\"324\" height=\"390\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The odd partnership between Maria Sharapova and Jimmy Connors is over after just one match. Photo: Reuters<\/p>\n<p>Maria Sharapova has confirmed that she cut off ties with coach Jimmy Connors after only one match together.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian world number three said in a statement that the pairing had not been \u201cthe right fit for this time in my career\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Sharapova had originally hoped her partnership with the fiery eight-times grand slam champion would produce the same type of success Andy Murray has enjoyed since recruiting Ivan Lendl, another former playing great, as his coach.<\/p>\n<p>But instead the brief experiment ended after one match, a second round loss to Sloane Stephens in the Western and Southern Open on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The 60-year-old Connors, who was pugnacious on court with a relentless determination through his playing career, and <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/sharapova-tops-female-athletes-rich-list\/\" target=\"_blank\">tennis glamour queen Sharapova<\/a> had always seemed an odd fit.<\/p>\n<p>Looking on from the stands on Tuesday, Connors could only hang his head as he watched his student unravel in a three-set loss to American teenage prospect Stephens which owed as much to a seven-week injury layoff as any breakdown in coaching.<\/p>\n<p>While it had been a rocky start to their collaboration, Connors seemed to indicate after the match that it would continue, tweeting: \u201cEvery good round starts with a bogey \u2013 not the start we wanted, so back to work tomorrow.\u201d \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more breaking Maria Sharapova news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/maria-sharapova\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/a22be_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The odd partnership between Maria Sharapova and Jimmy Connors is over after just one match. Photo: Reuters Maria Sharapova has confirmed that she cut off ties with coach Jimmy Connors after only one match together. The Russian world number three said in a statement that the pairing had not been \u201cthe right fit for this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-21991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}