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IMAGE: A pioneering mentor who coached 10 world quantity ones, Nick Bollettieri was inducted into the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame in 2014. {Photograph}: Graham Denholm/Getty Pictures
Nick Bollettieri, the larger-than-life coach whose famed Florida tennis academy modified the face of the sport by producing a few of its best gamers, has died on the age of 91, with ex-student Tommy Haas main tributes to the “certainly one of a sort” American.
The son of Italian immigrant mother and father, Bollettieri served in america military and dropped out of regulation college to change into a coach, shaping the careers of high names together with Andre Agassi, Serena and Venus Williams, Monica Seles and Maria Sharapova.
A pioneering mentor who coached 10 world quantity ones, he was inducted into the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame in 2014.
“Thanks in your time, data, dedication, experience, the willingness to share your talent, your private curiosity in mentoring me and giving me the very best alternative to comply with my desires,” Indian Wells event director and Germany’s former world quantity two Haas wrote on Instagram.
“You had been a dreamer and a doer, and a pioneer in our sport, actually certainly one of a sort.”
Germany’s Sabine Lisicki, the 2013 Wimbledon runner-up, mentioned that Bollettieri had “formed the sport of tennis”.
“You will have given so many kids a spot to work for his or her dream. Supporting them together with your data and the assumption that something is feasible. I used to be lucky to be certainly one of them,” Lisicki wrote on Twitter.
“You may be dearly missed!”
Bollettieri’s daughter Angelique Anne had introduced on Fb final month that her father was nearing the tip.
“Dad is near transitioning to the following place. Please hold him in your ideas for a peaceable departure and fantastic journey. We love you, Daddy,” she wrote.
Reviews within the US media mentioned Bollettieri died on Sunday.
One in every of Bollettieri’s first completed college students was American Brian Gottfried, the world quantity three in 1977.
Bollettieri based the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy the next 12 months. It was purchased by the Worldwide Administration Group in 1987.
“RIP Nick Bolletieri. Apart from being the best coach ever, you had been so type to me, my mother and father, and my siblings … that meant extra to me than something, you had an enormous coronary heart and a zest for dwelling,” mentioned former ladies’s primary Chris Evert.
Patrick Mouratoglou, one other famous coach who additionally labored with Serena Williams, mentioned the tennis household had misplaced an essential determine in Bollettieri.
“Somebody who has made our business develop and has opened alternatives for coaches and gamers,” he mentioned.
“We’ll bear in mind the very particular human being you had been and can miss you.”
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