Peyton Stearns has split with Rafael Font de Mora, coach under WTA Tour misconduct investigation

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Peyton Stearns, the American world No. 48, is no longer working with coach Rafael Font de Mora, who is under investigation by the WTA Tour for alleged misconduct and inappropriate relationships with players during his previous time coaching on the tour.

During an interview at the BNP Paribas Open Saturday night, Stearns said that she and Font de Mora split after the first Grand Slam of 2026. When asked why, Stearns said: “I’m not going to dive into that.”

A representative for Stearns did not respond to a request for comment. In January, a spokesperson for the WTA Tour said that “reports and investigations into alleged violations of the WTA Code of Conduct and Safeguarding Code are confidential and not subject to public disclosure.” The spokesperson said that this remains the case when contacted for comment.

Two former women’s players, one of them 22-time Grand Slam doubles champion Pam Shriver, made official safeguarding complaints about Font de Mora during this year’s Australian Open. They said they had made the complaints out of concern for Stearns’ well-being, as well as that of other players.

The second former player spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, and to protect relationships in tennis.

Font de Mora, who did not respond to a request for comment for this story, has denied all wrongdoing. Stearns spoke highly of his coaching during the Australian Open, and declined to comment on his prior career at that tournament.

The coach, 57, said during an interview at the Australian Open that he could not discuss the complaints to the WTA Tour because he had not been told about them. He said he has known Stearns since she was around 10, and had advised and occasionally coached her since then. The plan at that time was that he would travel with Stearns full-time on the WTA Tour, after a training block ahead of the 2026 season.

A few days later, he responded to questions about the complaints by email, with civil attorney Karen Moskowitz copied.

“Your questions are statements that are not true,” he wrote. “I coordinate my training and sprints with professional trainers and biomechanist(s) and I am a very positive coach.”

Shriver’s complaint about Font de Mora to the WTA Tour concerned his relationship with Meghann Shaughnessy, who Font de Mora coached in the 1990s and early 2000s in Arizona, starting when she was 13.

Shaughnessy left her family home to move in with Font de Mora, along with other tennis players, when she was 14 and he was 25. When she was 19, they became engaged.

Font de Mora has said that their relationship was platonic until Shaughnessy turned 18, but according to reports at the time, her parents twice tried to remove her from his coaching. Font de Mora and Shaughnessy never married, and they ended their relationship in 2005.

Shaughnessy did not allege any wrongdoing by Font de Mora. In January, she declined to comment, beyond confirming that she and Font de Mora never married.

The second player, who requested anonymity, worked with Font de Mora early in her career. She said he behaved aggressively toward her and was physically and verbally abusive. The behavior included swearing in her face and hitting balls aggressively in her direction, the player said.

A third player, who also worked with Font de Mora, broadly corroborated the second player’s accounts of the coach’s behavior.

The complaints are being handled by Lindsay Brandon, the WTA’s director of safeguarding, according to two sources briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. The WTA has recently taken a more proactive approach to complaints, having largely stayed out of player-coach relationships in previous years.

If complaints are upheld, penalties can range from mandatory coaching education programs, to revocation of tournament credentials and bans from sites and facilities.

Stearns is now being coached by Roberto Ortega, a former world No. 232 and one-time coach of world No. 50 Jéssica Bouzas Mineiro. He has been working with Stearns since the start of last month’s Qatar Open.

Stearns, who lost in her first-round singles match at Indian Wells, remains in the women’s doubles draw with American-Estonian player Ingrid Neel. They face the No. 2 seeds, Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani, in the second round.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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