Riccardo Piatti (born 8 November 1958) is an Italian

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. He has coached several players who have been ranked in the top 10 by the

Association of Tennis Professionals The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) is the governing body of the men's professional tennis circuits – the ATP Tour and the ATP Challenger Tour. It was formed in September 1972 by Donald Dell, Jack Kramer, and Cliff Drysdale to p ...

(ATP) including

Novak Djokovic Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Новак Ђоковић, Novak Đoković, separator=" / ", ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players#Weeks at N ...

Ivan Ljubičić Ivan Ljubičić (; born 19 March 1979) is a Croatian former professional tennis player, coach and Tennis TV commentator. He reached a career-high Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world No. 3 singles ranking on 1 May 2006. His career high ...

Richard Gasquet Richard Gabriel Cyr Gasquet (; born 18 June 1986) is a French former professional tennis player. He was ranked as high as world No. 7 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals, ATP, attained in July 2007. Gasquet won 16 singles ...

Milos Raonic Milos Raonic ( sr-Cyrl, Милош Раонић, Miloš Raonić, ; born December 27, 1990) is a Canadian professional tennis player. He has been ATP rankings, ranked world No. 3 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP ...

, and

Jannik Sinner Jannik Sinner (born 16 August 2001) is an Italian professional tennis player. He is currently ranked as the world No. 1 in men's singles by the ATP, the first Italian to reach the top ranking. Sinner has won 19 singles titles on the ATP Tour ...

Early life

Piatti began playing tennis at the age of nine at the tennis club of Villa d'Este in

Cernobbio Cernobbio (Comasco: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the province of Como, Lombardy, northern Italy. It is located about north of Milan and about northwest of Como, on the border with Switzerland and near Lake Como. The highest peak is the ...

Lombardia The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

in Italy. He first had the idea of becoming a tennis coach when he was 20; at the time the head coach of the Villa d'Este Country Club had an injury and Piatti was asked to replace him. In his 20s he learned to coach from

Nick Bollettieri Nicholas James Bollettieri (July 31, 1931 – December 4, 2022) was an American tennis coach. He pioneered the concept of a tennis boarding school, and helped develop many leading tennis players during the past decades, including Andre Agassi, J ...

at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (which has been absorbed into the

IMG Academy IMG Academy is a University-preparatory school, preparatory boarding school and sports training destination in Bradenton, Florida, United States. The organization is set across over 600 acres (243 ha) and features programs consisting of sport ca ...

), in

Bradenton, Florida Bradenton ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698, up from 49,546 at the 2010 census. It is a pri ...

. Riccardo's sister, Carolina, is also a tennis instructor.

Coaching career

Piatti began as a private coach for professional players in 1988 including early players he coached:

Renzo Furlan Renzo Furlan (born 17 May 1970) is an Italian tennis coach and a former professional player. The right-hander reached his highest ATP singles ranking of World No. 19 in April 1996. In 2024, he was named WTA Coach of the Year. Career Having tu ...

(career-high world No. 19),

Cristiano Caratti Cristiano Caratti (born 24 May 1970) is a former ATP Tour tennis player from Italy. He reached the quarterfinals of the 1991 Australian Open and the 1991 Miami Masters. Junior tennis career Started playing tennis at age 9. His younger brother a ...

(career-high world No. 26), and Omar Camporese (career-high world No. 18). Piatti began working with

in June 1997, when Ljubičić was ranked No. 954 in the world. This relationship lasted until the end of Ljubičić's professional playing career in 2012. Ljubičić was ranked worldwide as high as No. 3, his career high, while Piatti was his coach. From fall 2005 until June 2006, Piatti coached

when Djokovic was 18. Djokovic parted ways with him due to Piatti's refusal to work full-time with him. In 2011, Piatti claimed that he knew then (in 2006) that Djokovic "could become number one in the world and a player on the level of

Rafael Nadal Rafael Nadal Parera (born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish 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) for ...

and

Roger Federer Roger Federer ( , ; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss 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) for 3 ...

because Djokovic always worked hard as a child, with his family, and he was very focused and determined to be world number one. In February 2011, while still coaching world No. 14 Ljubičić, Piatti began to co-coach

(with

Sébastien Grosjean Sébastien René Grosjean (; born 29 May 1978) is a French tennis coach and a former professional player. Grosjean reached the semifinals at the 2001 Australian and French Opens, and at Wimbledon in 2003 and 2004. He finished eight consecutive ...

), who was then ranked No. 31 in the world. With Piatti, Gasquet improved to a high ranking of world No. 9, short of his career high No. 7, which he achieved in 2007. Piatti abruptly ended the relationship in November 2013 during the season-ending 2013 ATP World Tour Finals. On 1 December 2013 Piatti began working with

, co-coaching with Piatti's former student

. At that time, Raonic held an ATP world ranking of No. 11. With Piatti, his ranking rose to a career-high of No. 3. Piatti coached

Borna Ćorić Borna Ćorić (; born 14 November 1996) is a Croatian professional tennis player. On 5 November 2018, he reached his best singles ranking of world No. 12. In 2022, Ćorić became the lowest-ranked champion in ATP Tour Masters 1000, Masters 1000 h ...

from 2017 till September 2019. Coric cited one of the main reasons for the split was that

Maria Sharapova Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (, ; born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks. Sharapova won 36 WTA Tour-level sin ...

, a Grand Slam champion five times, also started working with Piatti in 2019. Sharapova and Piatti announced on November 8, 2019, that they would work together in 2020. Piatti was the coach of

, the 2019 #NextGenATP Finals champion, until February 2022. Piatti is involved with tennis schools, club teams, and summer's clinics on

Elba Elba (, ; ) is a Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park, a ...

, an island in Italy.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Piatti, Riccardo 1958 births Living people Italian tennis coaches Novak Djokovic coaches