Emma Raducanu: Dig at coach latest red flag after Australian Open defeat

“I want to be playing a different way,” Raducanu said. “The misalignment with how I’m playing right now and how I want to be playing is something I want to work on.”

The aftermath of the press conference was interesting. Raducanu left the room and, as per usual protocol, started a round of one-on-one broadcast interviews with the BBC. Unsurprisingly, the experienced tennis correspondent Russell Fuller followed up on her comments and asked her directly if she and Roig were on the same page. The answer suggests that there was perhaps an immediate realisation that she had gone too far.

“I didn’t play how I wanted to play because I wasn’t hitting any shot particularly well,” Raducanu said. “It’s tough to take an assessment when you’re completely off. Me and Francis have done some amazing work together in the past few months, and I’ve improved so many different aspects of my game. I think it’s difficult to say we don’t agree.”

The damage is probably already done. Roig has effectively had his judgment questioned and will surely be unhappy that this difference of opinion between player and coach was not kept behind closed doors. It has certainly not gone unnoticed in the locker room. Many eyes are on Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in ten days’ time to see if Roig is still alongside Raducanu at her next tournament, the Transylvania Open.

“That [press conference from Raducanu] would tell me that relationship probably doesn’t have too much longer to go,” Dan Kiernan, a long-time British coach, who works with the two-times US Open doubles champion Gabriela Dabrowski, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

Kiernan also observed that Raducanu reeled off a number of reasons for her straight-sets defeat by Anastasia Potapova, the world No55 from Austria. In addition to her preparation and tactics, Raducanu also mentioned a swirling wind, the difference between day and night conditions, and a feeling that she could not “scrap” her way through the match.

“I don’t think she relishes the battles,” Kiernan said. “I don’t know her, and I have the utmost respect for her, but it does come across that there is a soft centre. When something isn’t quite going to plan, there seems to be a bit of excuse-making. That is part and parcel of something bigger that is going on, that she hasn’t quite settled in [to her career].”

It was never going to be plain sailing for Raducanu in the aftermath of her remarkable breakthrough at the 2021 US Open, winning ten matches in straight sets at the age of 18 to become the only qualifier in history to win a grand-slam title. It is one of the great British sporting achievements, and one can feel quite confident in predicting that no 18-year-old qualifier will ever replicate that run again.

Because Raducanu had essentially become a grand-slam champion without serving an apprenticeship on the tour, a long period of adjustment to the main tour was expected. But she is now close to 4½ years on and has never reached the final of any further tournament, let alone winning a second title. No one, not even herself, could have anticipated this after that memorable night in New York.

Frankly, the first red flag appeared only weeks later in her next appearance at Indian Wells. Raducanu had dispensed with Andrew Richardson, the coach who guided her to glory, in search of someone with more experience of the tour. The problem was that no replacement was lined up, and she came across as a lost soul in the Californian desert, even genuinely asking journalists to recommend some names to her.

It felt then that Raducanu should have kept Richardson until the end of the season at the very earliest, which would have surely brought some positivity in getting the band back on the road after the US Open triumph. Instead, she was trying to hold a recruitment campaign at the same time as navigating new stops on the tour.

There was also a misstep in failing to appoint a dedicated media adviser to her team. The spotlight she was under as a young grand-slam champion was arguably unprecedented for a British female athlete, and it required someone to specifically guide her on the best way to handle her PR and communications — such as press conferences after a defeat. Instead, she has merely relied on her management agency, IMG, to take care of all off-court matters under one large umbrella.

The regular turnover of coaches speaks for itself. She has had at least ten different people work with her over the past five years — some on a trial basis, some informally, and others on longer-ish arrangements. The most baffling was the Slovenian Vladimir Platenik, who lasted only one match last year. We now wait to see if Roig joins the long list of ex-staff in the coming weeks.

It must be said that Raducanu is still by far Britain’s best female tennis player, and a world ranking of No29 is no disaster. Bear in mind that Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 US Open champion, is now a lowly No228, contesting lower-tier tournaments in Florida this month rather than the Australian Open.

The time has come, however, for Raducanu to kick on and put behind this sense that she is still finding her way on the tour. One fourth-round appearance in the 13 grand-slam events she has contested since the 2021 US Open is completely underwhelming for a player whose talent once captivated the country.

Click here to read article