US Open 2017: CoCo feels the force as Pat Cash works his magic

Pat Cash stands on the brink of another career highlight three decades after his Wimbledon triumph.

Coco Vandeweghe celebrates defeating Karolina Pliskova. Picture: AFP.

Pat Cash stands on the brink of another career highlight three decades after claiming the most prestigious trophy in tennis.

It is 30 years since Cash won the Wimbledon title with a straight-sets win over Ivan Lendl but another pinnacle looms in New York this weekend.

The Australian has been courtside at Flushing Meadows in the past fortnight as his charge Coco Vandeweghe surged into the semi-finals of the US Open.

The 25-year-old, who Cash began coaching just before the 30th anniversary of his triumph at the All England Club, toppled Karolina Pliskova from the world’s top ranking with a 7-6 (4) 6-3 win yesterday.

She will now play compatriot Madison Keys, who made the semi-finals an all-American affair with a 6-3 6-3 win over Kaia Kanepi.

Seven-time grand slam winner Venus Williams will play Sloane Stephens in the other semi-final.

It is the sixth time in the Open era that all four women’s semi-finalists have been American, but this is the first time it has happened in New York since 1981 when Tracy Austin, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Barbara Potter made the last four.

Vandeweghe’s win means Garbine Muguruza, who won Wimbledon this year, will assume the No 1 ranking at the end of the US Open despite falling in the fourth round to Petra Kvitova.

Key to Vandeweghe’s progression this week has been her poise in tight situations, a characteristic she has lacked despite possessing phenomenal power.

The right-hander has held her nerve in testing situations against Alison Riske, Ons Jabeur, Agnieszka Radwanska, Lucie Safarova and Pliskova. Asked how Cash has helped her in this area, Vandeweghe was reluctant to expand.

“You will have to ask him how he’s been able to do that,” she said. “Maybe it’s some Jedi mind trick. I don’t know how he’s doing it.”

But Cash, who was this week nominated as a candidate for inclusion into the International Tennis Hall of Fame next year, said he had tried to temper Vandeweghe’s aggression.

“She is big and powerful and in some ways that is a bonus for her but it is also to her detriment because she thinks she can blow anybody away on court at any time and she has had matches where she has done that,” he said.

“What we are trying to do is get the really good Coco and the not-so-good Coco and bring them together and say, ‘Sure you can smack a winner and beat anybody but what happens when they don’t go in? Then it looks like you have melted down and you have lost 6-2 6-2 when you should have won. Why don’t we get an element where we can put some safety into your game so that if things go wrong, you have got a plan B?’”

Although less forthcoming ahead of the semi-final clash against Keys, Vandeweghe did articulate some of the ways in which Cash had helped her before Wimbledon.

“(There are) little things, a perfect example of which is that when I start serving on the practice court, I used to hold three balls in my hand and throw one up to hit,” she said.

“Pat says to me: ‘Do you serve with three balls in your hand in a match?’ And I say no. And he says: ‘We practise how we play.’

“Holding three balls to practise my serves, that’s just how I’ve done it for years. That’s just habit. There are things you do and then someone tells you and you think, ‘Oh, I never really thought about that’.”

Cash, who has also coached Mark Philippoussis and Greg Rusedksi, was renowned for his training ethic despite being plagued by injury. He adopts a similar approach when coaching Vandeweghe.

“I am very intense,” he told The Tennis Channel.

“You go out there and you do things properly. There is no messing around. You don’t have time to mess around.

“We take things very seriously but we have fun.”