Darren Cahill (born 2 October 1965) is an Australian

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

coach and former professional

player. In addition, Cahill is a tennis analyst for the Grand Slam events on the US sports network

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

and a coach with the

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized in all lowercase since 1949) is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the ...

Player Development Program and at ProTennisCoach.com.

Early life and education

Cahill is the son of

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

player and coach John Cahill. After high school he attended the

Australian Institute of Sport The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The institute's headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the ...

on a scholarship.

Career

Player

Cahill turned professional in 1984. He won his first tour doubles title in 1985 at the Melbourne Outdoor tournament. In 1987, he won his first top-level singles title at

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

. Cahill's best singles performance at a Grand Slam event came at the 1988 US Open, where he knocked out Lawson Duncan,

Boris Becker Boris Franz Becker (; born 22 November 1967) is a German former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Becker won 49 c ...

, Marcelo Ingaramo (a walkover after Ingaramo withdrew), Martin Laurendeau, and Aaron Krickstein on the way to reaching the semifinals, where he lost to eventual champion

Mats Wilander Mats Arne Olof Wilander (; born 22 August 1964) is a Swedish former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ...

. In 1989, Cahill finished runner-up in men's doubles at the

Australian Open The Australian Open (stylized ΛO) is a tennis tournament organised by Tennis Australia annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. It is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Sl ...

partnering fellow Aussie

Mark Kratzmann Mark Edward Kratzmann (born 17 May 1966) is a former Australian professional tennis player. Tennis career Kratzmann was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder in 1983. Juniors As the world's No. 1 ranked junior player in 1984, ...

. Also with Kratzmann, Cahill won the ATP Championships in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

. Cahill was a member of the Australian team which reached the final of the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

in 1990. The team lost 3–2 to the United States in the final. Cahill compiled a 6–4 career Davis Cup record (4–0 in doubles and 2–4 in singles). Cahill won his last tour singles title in 1991 at

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. His last doubles title came in 1994 in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. In 1989, Cahill's reached his career peak doubles ranking of world No. 10 and his peak singles ranking of no. 22 in 1989. After chronic knee injuries and ten operations, he retired from the professional tour in 1995.

Coach

Since retiring from the tour, Cahill has been a successful tennis coach and guided

Lleyton Hewitt Lleyton Glynn Hewitt (born 24 February 1981) is an Australian former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) fo ...

to become the second youngest player ever ranked world No. 1. After Hewitt, Cahill coached

Andre Agassi Andre Kirk Agassi ( ; born April 29, 1970) is an American former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 101 ...

, who under Cahill became the oldest player ever to be ranked world no. 1 in May 2003 (later surpassed by multiple players). Cahill joined the Adidas Player Development Program after Agassi retired in 2006 and has worked with high-profile players, including

Andy Murray Sir Andrew Barron Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a British former professional tennis player and coach. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professio ...

, Ana Ivanovic, Fernando Verdasco,

Daniela Hantuchová Daniela Hantuchová (; born 23 April 1983) is a Slovak tennis commentator and retired player. She turned professional in 1999 and had her breakthrough year in 2002, when she won her first WTA Tour title at the Indian Wells Open, defeating Martin ...

Sorana Cîrstea Sorana Mihaela Cîrstea (; born 7 April 1990) is a Romanian professional tennis player. In singles, she achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 21 on 12 August 2013. In doubles, her career-best ranking is No. 35, which she reached on 9 March ...

, and Simona Halep. In 2017 and 2018, he coached Halep to No.1 on the WTA Tour and the 2018 French Open championship. After a year away, Cahill rejoined with Halep in 2020. In addition to coaching individual players, Cahill was the Australian

coach from 2007 until February 2009. He is also an

talent scout and works with promising junior players worldwide. He is now a member of the

Player Development Program. With Roger Rasheed,

Brad Gilbert Brad Gilbert (born August 9, 1961) is an American former professional tennis player, tennis coach, and tennis commentator and analyst for ESPN. During his career, he won 20 singles titles and achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4 ...

, and Paul Annacone, Cahill is a coach at ProTennisCoach.com, an open-access, professional coaching website. Cahill is also involved with PlaySight Interactive, a sports technology company behind the SmartCourt. Along with Paul Annacone, he heads up PlaySight's Coaching and Player Development team, helping the company to bring its technology to more tennis coaches and players across the world. In January 2022, Cahill began coaching tennis player

Amanda Anisimova Amanda Kay Victoria Anisimova ( ; ; born August 31, 2001) is an American professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles WTA rankings, WTA ranking of world No. 13, achieved on 16 June 2025. Anisimova has won three WTA Tour titles, inc ...

as a trial coach. He joined Simone Vagnozzi as a coach for Jannik Sinner in July 2022. The pair received the Coach of the Year award at the 2023

ATP Awards ATP may refer to: Science, technology and biology *Adenosine triphosphate, an organic chemical used for driving biological processes **ATPase, any enzyme that makes use of adenosine triphosphate *Advanced Technology Program, US government progra ...

. Cahill coached Sinner to win the 2024 Australian Open and US Open, and the 2025 Australian Open.

Media

Since 2007, Cahill is a tennis analyst for the global sports network

for three of the four major tennis Grand Slams: the

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * W ...

and the US Open. He also works for the Australian television network Channel 7 for the Hopman Cup and

Personal life

Cahill and his wife Victoria married in 2000. They have two children, Benjamin and Tahlia. Cahill's

nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

is ''Killer''.

ATP career finals

Singles: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up)

Doubles: 20 (13–7)

Mixed doubles: 1 (0–1)

Performance timelines

Singles

Doubles

Mixed doubles

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cahill, Darren 1965 births American television sports announcers Australian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Australian Institute of Sport tennis players Australian male tennis players Australian tennis coaches Living people Tennis players from Adelaide Sportspeople from the Las Vegas Valley Australian tennis commentators Tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic tennis players for Australia People educated at Sacred Heart College (Adelaide) Sportsmen from South Australia Sports coaches from Nevada 20th-century Australian sportsmen