Sofia Kenin is currently coached by Max Wenders. Wenders started coaching Kenin in the second half of 2021. Not long after the partnership began, Kenin announced that she is dating Wenders.
Wenders, who is from the Netherlands, is only a few years older than Kenin and is one of the youngest coaches on the tour. Initially, he trained to be a tennis player but when that didn’t work out, he look at coaching.
He was a hitting partner for Jelena Ostapenko (2017 French Open champion) and an assistant coach to Estonian player Anett Kontaveit. He also briefly coached Demi Schuurs.
Before hiring Wenders, Kenin was coached by her dad Alex Kenin. Under her dad’s guidance, Sofia Kenin won the 2020 Australian Open and was runner-up at the 2020 French Open. But she had a disappointing season in 2021, which led her to fire her dad as coach.
Speaking of the split, Kenin said:
I had great success with my dad, and I felt like now was the time for me to do what I wanted to do myself in terms of my tennis, my career. That’s why I decided that I had to part ways with my dad, it’s not like in the future we’re not going to get back. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I think for now I just need some time for myself, figure things, grow as a person and then, we’ll just see what’s gonna happen down the road.