An unpleasant coincidence

Patty Schnyder leans on husband/coach Rainer Hoffman

Last week, Anna Chakvetadze revealed something rather strange in a press conference. She said that Reiner Hoffman, who is Patty Schynder's husband and coach, had been one of her hitting partners for a while, and he had helped her get help with a physio or some such periperal thing. She said she was therefore surprised to hear Hoffman had told the press that he had been coaching her. She said no coaching had ever taken place, and she sounded none too pleased with Hoffman's statement.

Lo and behold, Hoffman turned up this week at the Bank of the West Classic to give special help, in the form of quasi-coaching, to Sania Mirza, the woman who took his wife out of the tournament. And there he was, coaching and cheering her along in her final against Chakvetadze. He even got a coaching warning at one point. According to the ESPN commentators (which doesn't mean much, I know), Mirza's family asked Hoffman if he would help her out. But seeing him in the stands as part of Mirza's team looked, shall we say, awkward, considering Chakvetadze had just called him out to the tennis press.

And Chakvetadze aside, why is Hoffman helping another player when his own wife is having problems with her career? Or even if she weren't having problems with her career.