THE DARIAN KING camp is still eyeing Grand Slam success.
Even “Down Under”.
Coach Christopher King says his brother is no longer satisfied with making the qualifying rounds of tennis’ Grand Slams as he believes Darian can break through to the main draw of next month’s Australian Open.
Christopher expressed the sentiment just moments after Darian made the cut for his second successive Australian Open qualifiers.
“The confidence is up there, where he believes that he should be qualifying for the main draw instead of just trying to win one or two matches, and that’s come from him winning these ATP Challengers,” said Christopher.
“The last time he went to see what he could do but since he has been consistently in the Grand Slam qualifiers then the goal has changed and so too his entire approach.
Mindset has changed
“Every tournament now his mindset has changed from just competing to getting results. But you don’t want to push him just to make the top 100 because the mental thing comes in where you feel that’s the only goal. We still want him to continue improving his tennis and then the results will keep coming,” he added.
Reaching a career-high 130 in the world this season, Darian got his first ever Grand Slam qualifying victory at Wimbledon this year before also winning his first-round qualifying match at the US Open.
And he very nearly went a step further after going up a break in the third and decisive set of his second-round match.
King is slated to leave for Australia next Wednesday to play in the Happy Valley ATP Challenger before opening the Australian Open qualifiers on January 11. (JM)