South Africa’s No 1 tennis player, Lloyd Harris, has a new coach, Jean-Marcel Bourgault Du Coudray.

He goes by the shortened version of Marcel du Coudray – or ‘MDC’.

Du Coudray was born in Mauritius and initially played Davis Cup tennis for the Mauritian team.

His family then moved to Durban, but he currently calls Gdańsk in Poland, home.

While on the ATP Tour, he reached a career high 743rd in singles and 342nd in doubles.

Previous players Du Coudray has coached include the former No 1 doubles pairing of John Peers (Australia) and Henri Kontinen (Finland), Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak (world No 76), and former world No 3, Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko.

Dry sense of humour

The South African’s Dave Marshall caught up with Du Coudray for an interview at the ongoing US Open in New York, and found him to be very down to earth, knowledgeable, competent, open, with a dry sense of humour.

During Lloyd Harris’s first round win over Argentina’s Sebastian Baez, The South African’s Amisha Savani was wearing a neon yellow dress while attending the match.

Du Coudray’s comment when she walked past him was, “I didn’t notice you there!”

He shared some entertaining stories, one which involved an interaction between Lloyd Harris and him during Harris’s recent second round match at the US Open.

Harris declared to Du Coudray at one point during his match that “I need a miracle.”

Du Coudray replied: “I’ll pray for you!”

Injured ankle

Du Coudray also described an occasion during his playing days when he was on his way to Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria for physio to treat his injured ankle.

On his way into the famous rugby ground, he was asked by an unnamed Blue Bulls prop: “What’s up brother?”

Du Coudray mentioned to the curious front rower that he had hurt his ankle and that he was on his way to see the physio for rehab.

The Blue Bulls player proceeded to pick up Du Coudray in his arms and carry him into the physio practice.

When asked if he felt safe, Du Coudray replied “I felt like I was a baby in the safe arms of my mother!”

It now looks like Lloyd Harris is the one who is in the safe hands of Du Coudray as his new coach.

Dave Marshall is reporting exclusively from the US Open in Flushing Meadows for The South African.

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