Madison Keys’ husband Bjorn Fratangelo was initially uncomfortable with coaching her (Image: Getty)
Madison Keys’ husband has revealed that he feared “ruining” the American’s game when he became her coach.
Former ATP star Bjorn Fratangelo started mentoring his wife during an injury layoff and retired from playing so he could coach Keys full-time.
The decision paid off – Keys won a long-awaited Grand Slam title at the last month. But Fratangelo was initially hesitant to call the shots in his partner’s career.
Keys provided the feel-good story at the . Aged 29, more than seven years after being demolished in her last Grand Slam final, she beat and back-to-back to lift the trophy.
The triumph came a couple of months after she married her coach and long-time partner Fratangelo, who was in Keys’ courtside coaching box to guide her through her Grand Slam-winning run.
A former world No. 99, Fratangelo started mentoring his wife in the summer of 2023 after she split with her coach and had no one to work with during the clay and grass swing. Fratangelo offered to help but quickly struggled with telling his then-girlfriend what to do.
“I was like, ‘If you need some help, just ask me’. So we ended up here,” the 31-year-old told Andy Roddick’s Served podcast.
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“All of a sudden I’m behind her [on the practice court] and I’m like, ‘Okay, this is weird. I don’t like it. I don’t like telling you what to do. I’m uncomfortable’.
“So it was just her with a couple of junior boys who were there, and then me kind of shagging balls, feeding them in. And then it slowly turned into her being like, ‘I need help. I need serious help, please help me’.”
Keys and Fratangelo have been in a relationship since 2017 and previously hadn’t discussed their careers with one another. But, after “grappling” with the idea of telling his girlfriend what to do, the former ATP player began to impart his wisdom, though he was still hesitant.
Fratangelo continued: “You could see her brain actively working. And I felt like this could be really good or this could be really bad, because a girl like her plays on instinct so much.
“The last thing I want to do is put things in her head and she’s going to get to Eastbourne and be like, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, Bjorn ruined me, maybe this was a big mistake’.”
Luckily for both Keys and Fratangelo, their partnership immediately proved fruitful. The pair headed to Eastbourne together in 2023, where the WTA No. 7 lifted the title. She followed it up by reaching the quarter-final.
Now, the married couple are experts at juggling their coaching relationship with their romantic relationship. The key? “I tell her, you know need to listen to me when we’re inside the white lines’,” Fratangelo added.
“You don’t need to listen to me when it comes to the home at all.”