Pere Riba has been working with Zheng Qinwen since she was 18, bringing her to the top 10, a final at the Australian Open in 2024, as well as a gold medal at the Olympics and the finals of the WTA’s year-end championship tournament. In 2023, he was on the team that helped Coco Gauff win the US Open. If there’s someone who knows how to develop a top player’s game, it’s the Spaniard. Carole Bouchard caught up with him at Roland-Garros, where talk of Zheng’s evolution had him all smiles.

Qinwen said that she felt it was time to add things to her game this year, such as coming to the net and hitting drop shots. How did you work on developing her game?

You must always be ready to learn. [At 22, she] is still really young and has a big margin of improvement. If there are things you don’t have in your game or things you have but that need to be improved, you need to do it. It’s always the moment to add things. Of course, she is already one of the best players in the world, and she has amazing potential, but you still have to work on these small details. You want to make the player more complete, because the more tools they have, the easier it is to find a way to win the matches. 

It’s challenging to find time to work on the game during the season. How do you manage it?

Yes, well, at least you have a good moment in the preseason to make these changes. But even during the season, you have to choose well to find training blocks. It’s getting tricky nowadays because of the WTA 1000s that are held over two weeks, so you really have to plan well. You need the training blocks to make these little changes happen. Then if you don’t have them, you can also use practice sessions. You set goals. You always ensure that you find an intention in the practice. That is really important to avoid going to the court and then just hitting for the sake of hitting. Of course, you have to do the basics, but then you must find the why. That’s how the player goes to the court with the mindset of, “I want to improve that part of my game.”

I don’t believe in being limited by age in some way. Of course, when they are younger, they can listen a little bit more, but I believe that you can always improve. It doesn’t matter the age—24, 25, 26, 30, or 35—you can always improve. We have the examples of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal to prove it. When you see that this can happen—because they did—then why not others? Women’s tennis is the same. They have to be open to improving all the time, and it doesn’t matter if you are No. 1, No. 5, or if you have won a Grand Slam title. You must be open to the idea of continuing to improve, because if not, others will. 

Is it easier with Zheng because she is so ambitious and dedicated?

She is truly open to improvement and change. Especially when she believes in it and when she sees that it’s so obvious. I understand that when the player is growing, when the player is getting better, especially in the rankings, sometimes you can doubt about making changes. Everything is working well, right? Everything you are doing is working, and you’re winning a lot of matches; everything seems fine. Yet there are still small things to improve. You must understand that if you improve, you will become a better player and have a greater chance of winning big events, especially when you are young. 

It’s a big responsibility when your player is already in the top 10, having played a Grand Slam final and won the gold at the Olympics…

Yes, it is. But in the end, you have to aim as high as you can. In my opinion, she has to aim to be No. 1 and win Slams. If you want to win these events and be at the top, then the process requires these improvements.

I saw her at the net here, and I was like, “Oh, that’s new!”

She’s going more to the net, she’s doing drop shots, she’s opening the court more, she’s serving much better. And still, she can improve many things. But I’m really happy because for a coach to see that your player is improving gives sense to your job. Every year I watch her, she becomes a better player. Results are another thing because sometimes you can do things well and then have one bad day. However, if you take a global look at the work done over the years, you can see that every year she has been better than the previous one. I have a lot of faith in her. 

Did you already have a vision for a game early in your collaboration?

I met her when she was 18. I remember that she was ranked 180 and came from juniors. I saw huge potential, but at that moment, it was a different thing: She had good potential on the shot, but there was something in her game patterns that needed work. I love the process that she went through, and you can now see it in the way she uses her heavy forehand. Now she goes to the court, and she so clearly knows the patterns and what she has to do. Now she’s playing with sense. She knows when to attack and when she has to defend. Of course, she needs to improve a lot because everyone can improve, but I’m so happy with the process, seeing how far she’s come since her junior days. It makes me happy to see how she has evolved and how she continues to evolve.

Long-term work is the only thing that can work…

Well, these days it’s not easy to find because young generations don’t have the patience. They want to succeed right now. But they have to believe in that process and show a little bit of patience during the work, even when the result isn’t coming at the moment they’d have wanted it to. You need to allow time for the process you are undertaking, as things will work out in the long term if you do it correctly. It’s going to come.