Jose Higueras coached Courier and Sampras to Grand Slam glory while during his protour he didn't won any grandslams and won only 16 titles in his career.
Jimmy Connors won 8 grand slams included in 109 career singles titles but didn't do much that great with Roddick.
What do you think of this?
I believe a coach who has a personal history of winning as a player has an advantage over one who doesn't, but wether or not he uses it to a great advantage is another matter and is only a small piece of what a coach brings to his player. You can't draw many conclusions from your particular example as Connors coming back to coach was always going to be a quick fix or get out situation and though the results were hardly spectacular, it did and has continued to give Roddick some more options in his tactics.
The bigger point is that tennis is similar to many sports in which the most decorated players rarely become coaches. There isn't much money in coaching and the traveling is very difficult so you don't see the Sampras, Borgs, Beckers,Grafs Everts, etc. become coaches. However,many of the most successful coaches have been the best of the players who did go into coaching like Tony Roche, Brad Gilbert, Heinz Gunthart and even Higueras. The situation is certainly better than in golf where coaches and "swing doctors" are rarely tour champions.
Finally in sports where coaching money is significant like baseball, football, and basketball, the Isiah Thomases and Pete Roses are still unusual as coaches, and are overshadowed in success by Pat Riley, Joe Torre, and Don Shula because as some have already pointed out-coaching isn't playing.
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