{"id":83711,"date":"2025-05-18T12:21:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T16:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=83711"},"modified":"2025-05-18T12:21:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T16:21:52","slug":"victoria-azarenka-explains-appearance-in-tommy-pauls-box-in-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/05\/18\/victoria-azarenka-explains-appearance-in-tommy-pauls-box-in-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Azarenka Explains Appearance In Tommy Paul&#8217;s Box In Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka has put paid to growing speculation of her recent appearance in Tommy Paul\u2019s coaching box at the Madrid Open.<\/p>\n<p>Azarenka, a two-time Grand Slam champion, was captured on live cameras in two of the American\u2019s matches at the ATP 1000 event. One of those was the late-night epic where Paul defeated Brazil\u2019s NextGen Star Joao Fonseca in two tie-break sets.<\/p>\n<p>And in Paul\u2019s round of 16 match against Jack Draper, Azarenka would return to the same seat. The unexpected crossover garnered a lot of interest from curious tennis fans who half-jokingly suggested a romantic spark. Azarenka\u2019s singles campaign in the tournament ended with a first-round defeat to Serbian lefty Olga Danilovic, but she was still active in doubles and had reached the quarterfinals stage with Ashlyn Krueger. That did not stop her from watching a couple of Paul\u2019s matches from close quarters.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ethan Quinn and Victoria Azarenka in Tommy Paul&#8217;s box <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ywba01kMCh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ywba01kMCh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mario Boccardi (@boccardi_marioo) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/boccardi_marioo\/status\/1916220690316898315?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Victoria Azarenka back in Tommy Paul&#8217;s box <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BUIWKGegtM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/BUIWKGegtM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mario Boccardi (@boccardi_marioo) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/boccardi_marioo\/status\/1917582896778317824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Azarenka finally clarified her presence in Paul&#8217;s coaching box<\/h2>\n<p>However, it became evident after the match that the two players had something in common. Paul\u2019s fitness coach, Franco Herrero, is also working with Azarenka. The WTA star&#8217;s professional relationship with Herrero commenced during the off-season, although Azarenka has occasionally trained with Paul in Boca Raton, Florida, where the Argentinian owns the FRWD Training.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7R7TOM45Mkg&amp;t=1007s\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">latest vlog<\/a> on Daria Kasatkina\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2024\/04\/14\/five-tennis-players-who-own-a-youtube-channel\/\" target=\"_self\">YouTube channel<\/a>, <em>What The Vlog<\/em>, the Belarusian clarified her involvement as a spectator in Paul\u2019s matches, ending any rumors of a potential relationship. The dialogue began with the two players discussing famous beverages.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I like mate. I drank during the match of Tommy Paul, and I couldn\u2019t sleep the whole night,&#8221; Azarenka said (13:38).<\/p>\n<p>When pressed by Kasatkina to explain why she stayed up so late to follow the match, Azarenka replied, &#8220;They were playing and I had nothing else to do. He (Paul) is my friend. We train together, just to clear all the rumors since that moment (laughing).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka has put paid to growing speculation of her recent appearance in Tommy Paul\u2019s coaching box at the Madrid Open. Azarenka, a two-time Grand Slam champion, was captured on live cameras in two of the American\u2019s matches at the ATP 1000 event. One of those was the late-night epic where [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":63841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3,2,4],"tags":[930,1635,393],"class_list":["post-83711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-atp","category-featured","category-wta","tag-madrid-open","tag-tommy-paul","tag-victoria-azarenka"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83711"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83714,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83711\/revisions\/83714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}