Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Nick Kyrgios looks set to begin 2016 without a coach and now Australia’s other big hope for the future, teenager Thanasi Kokkinakis has split with Todd Langman after 12 years.

Seeking for fresh impetus to push him upwards from a current position of world no.80, Kokkinakis has opted to work with Ben Mathias who made his name working with a third member of Lleyton Hewitt’s new Aussie Davis Cup squad, Sam Groth.

The Melbourne Age picked up on yet another young player/coach split that follows hard on the heels of Borna Coric parting from Thomas Johansson and Milos Raonic deciding he was better off working with somebody other than Ivan Ljubicic.

“I guess it just ran its course, and Thanasi just feels like he needs a new voice, so we just decided probably a week or a week and a half ago to just go our separate ways,” Langman told Fairfax Media.

“I still want him to win slams, but I just won’t be there, so it was disappointing, but I wish him all the best. He’s got a bright future and he’s moving on to a great coach, so I’m sure they’ll do well.”

Kokkinakis’s ranking rise has hit something of a plateau after pushing into the world’s top 100 earlier in the year and he realized greater experience of the top-flight was needed in his camp. He started hitting balls with Langman at the age of seven, and added former Wimbledon semi-finalist Jason Stoltenberg to his team in a part-time advisory role earlier in 2015.

Langman continued: “I think to do what we did was actually pretty incredible, to keep it going as long as we did, and obviously I was a younger guy and we’ve sort of grown up together and as he progressed as a tennis player I sort of progressed as a coach as well. I didn’t see it coming.

“Obviously this year we had Jason Stoltenberg come on board sort of as a mentor coach for me, and Jason’s Davis Cup role is taking up a little bit more time for him. You don’t want too many voices involved, and I think that was sort of where it was heading, so rather than have too many they just felt like a fresh voice was something that they wanted to try.”

Langman coached Kokkinakis to two junior grand slam singles finals and the highly-rated youngster also made his Davis Cup debut this year.

Stoltenberg, now a member of new Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt’s back-up team intends to travel for around 15 weeks next year working with Australia’s established and emerging players.

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.