When Serena Williams plays Naomi Osaka for her 24th Grand Slam title in the final of the US Open on Saturday, she will also meet her former hitting partner Sascha Bajin. The Munich native is now the Japanese coach, but he still raves about his time with the American superstar. Back then Williams was eating schnitzel and potato salad with Sascha’s mother in Feldmoching – and Bajin had trouble with Hollywood star Dennis Quaid’s wife.
In these crazy New York days, Sascha Bajin also holds her own press conference in the belly of the huge Arthur Ashe Stadium. The 33-year-old is in demand – a little more since Thursday evening, because when his protégé Naomi Osaka meets the great Serena in Flushing Meadows’ final on Saturday, it’s also an encounter with his own past for Bajin.
Between 2007 and 2015, the Munich part of the Williams universe was in the pits of 12 of his boss’ 23 Grand Slam titles. “He is like a little brother to me – whom I never had,” Serena once said – and named Bayin “Big Sasha” in short.
A leap back to 2012: I want to meet Bajin for an interview at the US Open. The young man is said to be funny – and he should have a lot to tell about Williams’ life as a hitting partner and confidant, about glamour and Grammy awards, but also about the hard training work with perhaps the best tennis player of all times. Good for me, the journalist.
The date is quickly arranged. But bayin’s a little late for the rendezvous. Forgiven because HE also has to sign autographs after training with Serena. Then the open-minded Bavarian hurries up – and immediately starts to cheerfully say: “Serena knows more about me than my own mother” – and: “The business has long since blurred with the private.
Bajin is something like “the girl for everything” at Williams. Sometimes the “good-mood-bear”. And you can feel that he likes this role, this “Twentyfourseven” job, as he calls it. His credo at the time: “I want to make Serena laugh every day, even if I have to make a fool of myself. That’s more important than telling her how to play the forehand.”
Bajin, whose dream of a professional career burst after his father’s accidental death, lived for a long time with Serena and her sister Venus on their family estate in West Palm Beach, Florida. “But that was too much women’s power,” says Bajin, who rents the practice courts, advises the extravagant Williams on shopping – or accompanies her at after-show parties.
Even in the tour bus of hip-hop star Pharrell Williams, Bajin has already ridden along with the tennis superstar. But he also knows the other, the fragile side of the 23-time Grand Slam winner: “Serena is in many ways a woman like any other. She sometimes doubts herself, too.”
Of course Williams was also visiting his family in a row house in Feldmoching just outside Munich. Mother Bajin spoiled the famous guest with schnitzel and potato salad – and Serena shone.
In an interview, Bajin calls her “boss with a heart”. When Williams was absent for about eight months due to a foot injury and the subsequent pulmonary embolism, Bajin continued to receive his full salary. For the US Open 2012 Serena rented her “Big Sascha” an apartment in Fifth Avenue.
And the Bavarian likes to chat out of the sewing box. Hollywood star Dennis Quaid is said to have been on the verge of divorce because of a Twitter entry by Bajin. How’s that? After a Williams Karaoke party, the actor had simply “kidnapped” Bajin’s female companion and disappeared with her at the Hotel Bel Air.
“Big Sasha” chirped this into the world – and called Quaid’s wife on the plan, who filed for divorce. “There was a lot going on,” says Bajin excitedly. A life in the Williams universe – always in the fast lane.
The leap back to 2018: Bajin has made the transition from hitting partner to coach. Even today he thinks back with joy and gratitude to the years in the Williams team: “Our relationship is still very good. “The time with her was unique because Serena is something special and an absolute superstar.” But on Saturday “Big Sascha” wants to do something big…past or future!
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