Emma Raducanu is right not to hire a coach – a bigger issue is lurking | Tennis | Sport
Emma Raducanu has admitted that she’s not actively looking for a coach (Image: Getty)
The ‘Sunshine Double’, aka the back-to-back ATP and WTA 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami, gets underway next week. And Emma Raducanu will head to California without an official coach. The British No. 1 parted ways with Francisco Roig following the recent Australian Open, her ninth coach split in under five years – depending on who and how you count.
It didn’t come as a huge surprise. After losing in Melbourne, Raducanu made it clear that she wasn’t happy with the way she was playing. And her turbulent coaching history means it’s never a real shock when she ends another partnership, even if it was amicable, like with Roig. But the real surprise, perhaps, has been her recent admission that she’s not looking for a replacement right now.
“Right now I wouldn’t say I’m actively looking for a coach,” Raducanu told the Guardian earlier this week. The world No. 25 isn’t completely alone; she’s recruited Alexis Canter on an ad-hoc basis for recent tournaments, and is also travelling with physiotherapist Emma Stewart.
Canter also helped Raducanu out in Washington last summer, just after she stopped working with Mark Petchey, but before she hired Roig. There, she made it to the semi-finals. And for now, that arrangement seems to be working for the 23-year-old, who finished runner-up in Cluj earlier this month.
Right now, Raducanu’s biggest priority is returning to the style of play she prefers, something which ultimately seemed to be the downfall of her partnership with Roig. “I think I want to be playing a different way, and I think the misalignment with how I’m playing right now and how I want to be playing is something that I just want to work on,” she said in Melbourne, days before splitting with the Spanish coach.
Rediscovering that alignment is something Raducanu has been working on herself in recent weeks, with Canter’s guidance. So, is there a point in bringing a new figure on board just to tick a box and give herself a full-time head coach by label? That may well throw her off her game again, as it likely did with Roig.
There have been plenty of times when Raducanu’s coaching decisions have been questionable. Some partnerships shouldn’t have ended, others shouldn’t have lasted. But there’s no point in bringing on a new coach for the sake of it, just to prove that she is doing what she’s meant to be doing by hiring a full-time mentor.
Emma Raducanu and Francisco Roig parted ways shortly after the Australian Open (Image: Getty)
It wouldn’t be outlandish to suggest that the 23-year-old may well have done that in the past – attempted to hire someone just so it didn’t appear to the world like she was doing the ‘wrong’ thing by not having a coach. Or stuck with someone, so she didn’t add to the coaching carousel chatter.
But Raducanu has now been on the tour for almost five years, albeit with plenty of stop-and-start due to injuries and other issues. She’s well aware that there will always be criticism and scrutiny, and she’s learned to block out the noise and do what’s best for her. And right now, that genuinely seems to be competing without a proper coach.
Even her successful partnership with Mark Petchey last year was never official and was ad-hoc, much like it is with Canter. Petchey – who worked with Raducanu before her 2021 breakthrough and already had a rapport with her – was never going to go full-time with the world No. 25, given his role as a Tennis Channel commentator, but he was happy to help her out as and when.
It worked; she got to the Miami Open quarter-finals and pushed Aryna Sabalenka before losing an exciting third-round match at Wimbledon. A similar arrangement with Canter is also seeing results, as Raducanu recently reached her first final since that 2021 US Open win. And Petchey stuck to his word on helping out when needed. The British coach and pundit will even come back into the fold for Indian Wells next week, according to The Times. It’s exactly the type of relationship that suits Raducanu right now, and a week or two with a trusted figure is better than bringing in a completely new face. For now, Raducanu needs to keep working on finding her identity on the court and rack up more match wins after a recent chest infection set her back.
What she doesn’t need is to bring in another voice unnecessarily.
