Schnyder splits with family
Posted: Wednesday February 24, 1999 08:01 PM
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Schnyder has played inconsistently of late, dropping to a No. 12 ranking. Clive Brunskill/Allsport |
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Swiss tennis star Patty Schnyder reportedly has split with her family because of her coach, who is described as a "healer" and urges her to drink quarts of orange juice daily.
Rainer Harnecker has been with Schnyder in recent weeks and has devised a stringent regimen for the 20-year-old player, the Zurich newspaper Blick reported.
Harnecker, a 42-year-old German trainer, recommends the heavy orange juice intake because it is "almost identical to mother's milk," the paper said.
Schnyder's parents, Willy and Iris, have been quoted as saying they will not accept their daughter until she leaves Harnecker.
"She is not my Patty any more," Willy Schnyder told Blick last week. "I have told Patty that she doesn't need to come home again."
Harnecker, who runs a fitness center in the German town of Kaufbeuren under the name "Via Sola" (the only way), says he is "no miracle healer, just a completely rational man."
Schnyder has played inconsistently of late, dropping to a No. 12 ranking after losing in the first round at the recent tournament in Hanover, Germany.
"My dearest desire is to go back to my parents," the Lausanne daily Le Matin quoted her as saying after the Hanover defeat. "But they must give Rainer Harnecker the chance to explain himself."
Harnecker is also under investigation by German police for possibly breaking laws on alternative health care, Swiss newspapers report.
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