"It drives me insane": Can Caroline Garcia end her malaise Down Under?

MELBOURNE—Rain doused Melbourne on Monday, helping to improve the much-discussed air quality after bush smoke early in Australian Open qualifying caused both havoc and uncertainty.

Caroline Garcia might be wondering when relief, in the form of victories, is headed her way.

Indeed, while the likes of younger compatriots Corentin Moutet and Ugo Humbert have started 2020 on a high, with runner-up and champion finishes, respectively, Garcia’s alarming slide shows no signs of waning.

Soaring to fourth in the world in 2018, thanks largely to a 13-match winning streak in 2017 that included the Wuhan-Beijing double, Garcia is now perilously close to exiting the Top 50. It would be the first time since May 2016, should it happen.

“It’s true there are a lot of frustrations, but it’s down to me to try to put them to the side and concentrate on what’s essential to me, my game and also to adapt to the opponent,” the 26-year-old said on Sunday, when sunny skies and temperatures of around 86 degrees preceded another downpour.

Her first-round opponent on Tuesday is the Delaware counterpuncher Madison Brengle, no stranger to pulling off big-name upsets, be it taking out Serena Williams on a blustery Auckland day in 2017 ,or ousting Petra Kvitova at Wimbledon later in the same year. Still, Brengle is ranked 95th in the world, without a WTA title to her name.

But glancing at Garcia’s results, any match right now, regardless of the opponent, could be a toss-up.

As part of a 1-5 skid—and this after concluding 2019 by losing 13 of 18 matches—Garcia, remarkably, fell 6-0, 6-0 to Ashleigh Barty in the Fed Cup final in Perth in November; lost 6-2, 6-2 indoors on a hard court in Limoges in December to Fed Cup teammate Pauline Parmentier, whose most productive surface remains clay; and suffered defeats to wild cards Lizette Cabrera and Eugenie Bouchard in Hobart and Auckland, respectively, to begin 2020.

Cabrera, ranked 129th at the time, hadn’t won a top-level main draw match for three years, while the 262nd-ranked former Wimbledon finalist Bouchard snapped a seven match losing skid against Top 50 opposition.

“You always want to start the season well,” said Garcia. “You wait to get wins and have positive matches, and that’s not really what I’ve had.”

This from the player who was once famously tipped for the No. 1 ranking by none other than Andy Murray, after Garcia built a set and 4-1 lead over Maria Sharapova as a carefree 17-year-old at the 2011 French Open. Garcia is already a Slam winner, in doubles, and appeared to have turned a corner in singles before this slide.

“I was in Perth when she lost to Barty,” said Sophie Amiach, a former Australian Open quarterfinalist in singles and doubles who now commentates matches in English and French. “She was getting ripped by Barty. Yes, Barty is No. 1 and playing well, but she should never lose love and love.”

Three years ago in the Wuhan final, in a match-up of former junior standouts, Garcia topped Barty, who was then ranked 37th.

“Look at the progression of Barty,” said Amiach. “She has progressed in every aspect of her game after that. You look at Caroline, and well, she’s had how many great matches since then? You can count them on your hands.”

For a while now, as Garcia well knows, people have wondered whether another coach is needed to work alongside her dad, Louis Paul, or even replace him. He is self-taught and not a former player.

Amiach, once coached by Billie Jean King, has offered up her services, and said she even had a discussion with Garcia’s father in Perth.

“He has done tremendous work,” said Amiach. “You don’t get to where she got to by herself. He’s got to stay in the picture, but she has to understand that they are at a time where it’s getting worse and worse. It’s sad. I think she definitely needs the voice of an ex-player.

“We’re talking about day-in, day-out being more consistent in what she does, and having a way to go from plan A to plan B, reacting to the different types of players out there.

“I think with the serve she has, it drives me insane—she’s as good physically as the Top 10, and she has the physique to serve at least an ace in each game and the arm to do so, and none of that is happening.”

Garcia told French sports paper L’Equipe this week she wasn’t averse to adding to her entourage—there was even a link with Hall of Famer Justine Henin—but certainly offered up no guarantees.

French reporters subsequently danced around the coaching situation in her briefing Sunday, asking whether she thought about tweaking things without specifically mentioning her dad.

“It’s not our mentality, it’s not mine either,” Garcia said. “There have been questions to ask and maybe some things that we have to evolve but we haven’t said, ‘Everything is bad, we’re changing everything.’ We have been working and that’s where we are today.”

True, the 2019 campaign wasn’t all bad for Garcia.

There was a final at home on the clay in Strasbourg and winning on grass in Nottingham a few weeks later, results that continue to demonstrate Garcia’s immense ability irrespective of the surface.

And she combined with Kristina Mladenovic, her once pal prior to a thaw, in doubles to the seal the Fed Cup final under new captain Julien Benneteau, realizing a “dream.” (Benneteau, by the way, didn’t want to discuss Garcia’s plight when contacted by TENNIS.com, keen to avoid focusing on a single player on his team.)

Calling Garcia’s last six months in singles “nightmarish” might be a tad harsh, especially when pondering Mladenovic’s 15-match losing streak from 2017-2018, but how she craves wins in Melbourne to reignite her career.