Michael Llodra Wins Eastbourne With Help of Coach Amelie Mauresmo

Michael Llodra beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5, 62 in the final of the AEGON International men's singles draw at Eastbourne, a bracket that is largely an afterthought to the much more prestigious concurrent women's event held at Eastbourne.

Most notable in this story is the recent arrival to the Llodra camp of 2006 Wimbledon Ladies' Singles champion Amelie Mauresmo, who began coaching Llodra on his grass court play last week at Queen's Club.  Mauresmo was the closest thing the WTA Tour had to a serve-and-volleyer in recent times, and her grass court skills and know-how are likely incomparable among recently retired players.

Mauresmo was always extremely popular among players on both tours. She played doubles with an incredible array of partners on the WTA, and was constantly popping up in photos of French ATP players as well (please take note of Gasquet's ridiculous pose).

The only other woman I can recall ever coaching an ATP player was Tatiana Naumko, whom last I heard was coaching Galina Voskoboeva.  Naumko coached Andrei Chesnokov for much of the early 90s, as mentioned in this article from The New York Times.  You can tell right away in that piece that it was an extremely different time.  Best-of-five matches were frequent, and Newsweek had enough money to sponsor a tournament.