How Escoffier's wife has coached him to newfound success

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/antoine-escoffier/e768/overview'Antoine Escoffier/arsquo;s wife, Yolhen, has been instrumental in the Frenchmanrsquo;s journey to winning his first ATP Challenger Tour title. Not just as a spouse, but Yolhen, who works as a mental coach, is providing that kind of training to her husband./p

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ldquo;Itrsquo;s part of her job. She has a multi-task job, she [focusses] on natural paths, like natural ways for the body about food. Therersquo;s also the mental part, the yoga teaching, shersquo;s all connected to the well-being of the body,rdquo; Escoffier told ATPTour.com./p

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A 32-year-old who struggled with injuries in the early stages of his career, Escoffier decided to make this key change at age 28. He was at a then career-high World No. 335 in the PIF ATP Rankings in February 2020, right before the Covid-19 pandemic paused the ATP Challenger Tour season. Escoffier was hungry to climb even higher coming out of the extended break./p

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ldquo;I had to do things differently because until then, it was all leading to the same results, which was good, but not as good as I thought I could be. I just tried to change. I started with my wife,rdquo; Escoffier said. /p

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ldquo;We just started from zero. Big mental workouts, a big priority on the mental part of the game and less about the tennis, which was the opposite from the previous 10 years; 100 per cent tennis and zero per cent mental. /p

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ldquo;Now I give 100 per cent to mental [training] and zero per cent to tennis,rdquo; he joked./p

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Escoffier enjoyed one of the best months of his career in July, winning his biggest title at last weekrsquo;s ATP Challenger Tour 50 event in Segovia, Spain, where he was a finalist in 2023. Though Escoffier does not have a tennis coach, he had Yolhen vocally supporting him courtside in Segovia./p

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ldquo;Shersquo;s coaching me every changeover, every eye contact we have, therersquo;s something about our plan, our goals that we had. Shersquo;s cheering me a lot,rdquo; said Escoffier, who reached the Pozoblanco Challenger final the week preceding his title run./p

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Escoffier first met Yolhen at age 15, though they did not start dating until 2012, when he was 20. They married in September 2022./p

pimg src="/-/media/images/news/2024/08/02/12/53/escoffier-2013-wife.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Antoine and Yolhen in 2013." /br/emsupAntoine and Yolhen in 2013. Credit: a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/antoine-escoffier/e768/overview'Antoine Escoffier/a/sup/em/p

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One advantage of having Yolhen by his side is that Escoffier does not need to carve out his schedule to have a meeting with a mental coach. Instead, the conversations are more organic./p

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ldquo;Itrsquo;s totally random. It can be 7:30 a.m. when I wake up, I think about something and then I share it with her. It can be during a movie at night, I stop the movie and I say, lsquo;Irsquo;m thinking about something.rsquo; And then we talk for one hour and then the movie is over so we are going to have to wait until the next day [to finish] the movie,rdquo; Escoffier said./p

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ldquo;We talk as husband and wife, but then five minutes later I can share with her what my mind is going through and then it goes to a mental conversation. Itrsquo;s always like this./p

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ldquo;Thatrsquo;s the good part I guess, because itrsquo;s not scheduled. Sometimes you schedule something, like tennis, mental, or physical and yoursquo;re not in the mood and then you canrsquo;t take the best of yourself when itrsquo;s scheduled and you donrsquo;t feel it. For this, Irsquo;m pretty lucky that we travel together almost all year and we can have this type of conversation anywhere, whenever.rdquo;/pp

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Those early-morning or late-night impromptu talks combined with Escoffierrsquo;s hard work are reaping rewards. And Escoffier is trying to return the favour by coaching Yolhen in tennis lessons./p

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ldquo;Irsquo;m teaching her in exchange for her services. Shersquo;s learning. Maybe 10 more years before the WTA Tour,rdquo; he said with a laugh./p

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strongDid You Know?/strongbr /

Escoffier is the second-oldest first-time winner in Challenger history. Only a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/joseph-sirianni/s673/overview'Joseph Sirianni/a (32 years, 10 months) was older when he won his maiden title in Caloundra, Australia (2007)./pblockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"2023 ➡️ Finalistbr2024 ➡️ Champion brbrWhat an incredible week for a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/antoine-escoffier/e768/overview'Antoine Escoffier/a in Segovia! a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ATPChallenger?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#ATPChallenger/a a href="https://t.co/WwhJfZl3KW"pic.twitter.com/WwhJfZl3KW/a/pmdash; ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) a href="https://twitter.com/ATPChallenger/status/1817570741602398259?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"July 28, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

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