Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi have been voted Coach of the Year in the 2023 ATP Awards for their work with Italian Jannik Sinner.
In 2023, the 22-year-old Sinner captured his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title in Toronto, reached the championship match at the Nitto ATP Finals and became the first Italian man to end a season in the Top 5 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.
The World No. 4, who finished the year holding a 64-15 record, also reached his maiden major semi-final at Wimbledon under the guidance of Cahill and Vagnozzi. Sinner won four tour-level trophies in 2023 and received the Fans’ Favourite Award earlier this week.
Vagnozzi has worked with Sinner since February 2022 but has been aware of Sinner's potential for considerably longer.
“I’ve known Jannik from when he was 14. He played against one of my junior players, so I saw him for the first time there,” Vagnozzi told atptour.com earlier this year. “It's really nice to coach him because he's a really funny guy. He has a really good character. It's easy to coach Jannik also because he wants to improve a lot and go on the court always with a smile and everything, so for a coach it’s really good.”
Cahill, who has coached former World No. 1s Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt, joined Team Sinner in June 2022. The Australian has focused on developing the Italian’s mental side.
“My role is more about the experience and how to help him mentally in these big moments, and to make sure that we're working on the right stuff that eventually is going to get him to the place we want to be,” Cahill said earlier this season.
Cahill and Vagnozzi were nominated for Coach of the Year honours along with Craig Boynton (Hubert Hurkacz), 2022 winner Juan Carlos Ferrero (Carlos Alcaraz), Goran Ivanisevic (Novak Djokovic) and Bryan Shelton (Ben Shelton). Fellow coaches vote on the nominees and winner in this category.
Sinner has also been nominated two player-voted awards: Most Improved Player of the Year and the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award, The winners for those categories will be announced later this week.
