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In the sometimes depressing history of father-daughter relationships in tennis, France’s Aravane Rezai has her own share of horror stories to tell. |
But the 26-year-old, who once rose as high as 15 in the world less than three years ago only to fall spectacularly to her current 185, believes she could soon have a happy ending after reconciling with estranged father and coach Arsalan. It’s a moment which seemed unlikely at the Australian Open in 2011 when he was questioned by police in Melbourne after threatening his daughter’s boyfriend.
He was banned from the tournament, just one of a number of violent confrontations which had also seen him once fined for even threatening players at a junior tournament.
In 2007, Rezai herself was banned from training at Roland Garros, the home of the French Open, after her father threatened Georges Goven, the country’s Fed Cup coach at the time.
“Why go back? I think you need to ask yourself the right questions, the searching questions. My objective is to get there in the end, and I think he’s also there for me to help me. So we’re going to try and put the past behind us now,” said Rezai, on Wednesday after being knocked out of the French Open by Petra Kvitova, the former Wimbledon champion. Rezai, of Iranian descent and whose stated ambition is to become an astrophysicist, came into Roland Garros with her biography showing she was without a coach.
But she revealed that she has been working with her father for three weeks.
“We all deserve a second chance. We will try and muddle through as we can. The weeks of training I did with him, that proved positive.”
“Work is work. I entrust everything to my dad on that. Our relationship has changed. I think that everybody in this room has problems with their parents.
“I’m a normal person just like you. We’ve all got problems with our respective families. I’m in the public eye so this is blown out of proportion a bit. I’m delighted to have made the decision I did.”
Rezai, whose best run at Roland Garros was a 2009 fourth round appearance, has endured a miserable 2013 on the tour — making the main draw only once while falling in qualifying on four occasions. Rezai’s reconciliation with her father comes just a day after Australian star Bernard Tomic insisted that his father, John, would continue as his coach despite him facing a criminal charge in Spain for attacking his son’s training partner.
John Tomic had his tour credentials withdrawn and was banned from the French Open after being charged with assaulting Frenchman Thomas Drouet in Madrid on May 4 and faces a trial in October.
“My dad is in Paris, he’s still my dad and he will remain my coach. I love him a lot,” said Tomic.
The 20-year-old Tomic, like Rezai, failed to make it out of the first round when he retired from his match against Victor Hanescu with a hamstring tear.