It's too early to give too much credit to Sascha Bajin, but since hiring him, Kristina Mladenovic has gone 10-2. The Frenchwoman had quite a day on Thursday in Rome with wins over both Belinda Bencic and Ashleigh Barty.

"Of course, I have to mention that I'm loving what I'm working on with Sascha," Mladenovic said. "Helps me a lot because, yeah, I found with him someone that likes to spend hours and hours on court with me. I have to say he brought on some new exercises."

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Bajin joined Mladenovic's team in April, after which she reached the Istanbul quarterfinals (and won the doubles crown), lost a tough second round to Petra Kvitova in Madrid after qualifying, and is now into the Rome quarterfinals, again after going through qualifying.

"We have the same vision of my tennis, but he kind of brought new exercises to this same vision and goal," Mladenovic said. "It helps me for sure in my consistency again."

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The world No. 63 is looking to return to the Top 10 after a tough six-month period starting near the end of 2017 saw her endure a 15-match losing streak. While her singles game stalled out, she won three doubles crowns in 2018, including the Australian Open and WTA Finals (with Timea Babos). She started the 2019 season with four straight singles losses.

"I'm also aware that it's never a straight line. I don't know, in a few weeks or few months, it can be again a bad feeling or period," Mladenovic said. "It's endlessly ups and downs in sport. I think with the experience I'm kind of more calm. Either it's a loss or a win. For sure I'm very happy that let's say in a short period of time I already feel like the work I'm doing also with Sascha helps me and it's going in the right direction again for my tennis."

The 26-year-old hadn't had a full-time coach outside of her family support for three years. Bajin has previously worked with Noami Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams—all Grand Slam champions and No. 1s.

"I don't want to say we're gonna win this or we're gonna win that, but knowing now what I've seen in practice, I told her look, when we go to tournaments I want you to understand I go there and we pre-book our flights for Sunday," Bajin said in an interview with the WTA. "I don't even want her to think about quarters. No. We go there to win, we take it one round at a time and we respect our opponents, but at the same time I do believe that there is nobody she needs to fear."

In the quarterfinals on Friday, she will play the winner of Maria Sakkari and Petra Kvitova.

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Mladenovic enjoys
rollercoaster turn 
upwards in Rome

Mladenovic enjoys rollercoaster turn upwards in Rome