Why Emma Raducanu’s latest coaching split will be discussed more than the rest

Kevin Palmer 29 Jan 2026 6:30 PM

Emma Raducanu during her match

An announcement that Emma Raducanu has split with her coach no longer comes as a surprise, with her decision to part company with Francisco Roig inevitable after her comments following her exit from the Australian Open.

Raducanu’s suggestion that she was not happy with the tactics she was trying to deploy as she lost in convincing fashion against Anastasia Potapova could only be viewed as a difference of opinion with coach Roig, with confirmation that the duo have gone their separate ways coming a week after her defeat in the opening Grand Slam of the year.

Raducanu has been back in London training at the LTA’s National Tennis Centre this week, but the images released of her hitting on the indoor courts did not feature the presence of Roig, fuelling rumours that he was set to leave her team.

Yet this decision is likely to spark a wider debate than most of Raducanu’s coaching splits, given Roig’s profile and reputation as one of the finest coaches in the game.

Raducanu is right to take control of her own destiny and if she feels the variety Roig was keen to add to her game is not the direction she wants to travel in, there was no valid reason to continue working with a coach who known for his attention to detail and a focus that was admired by Rafael Nadal during his time working with the Spanish strategist.

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Roig is highly regarded in tennis circles and Raducanu’s achievement of getting him on her team appeared to be a sign that the 2021 US Open champion was looking to bridge the gaps that have existed between her and the players at the very top of the women’s game.

Raducanu’s comments after her defeat in Melbourne left little doubt that instead of adding dimensions to her game, she feels the way to win against the best is to revert to Plan A and try to replicate the power-hitting baseline game that fired her to that historic Grand Slam win in New York.

“I think I’m going to take a few days, get back home and try and just re-evaluate my game a bit,” said Raducanu in his Australian Open press conference.

“Watch it back, see where I can improve. What I have been feeling and also what is visually apparent. I definitely want to feel better on certain shots before I start playing again.

“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.

“At the end of the day, I just want to hit the ball to the corners and hard. I feel like I’m doing all this variety, and it’s not doing what I want it to do. I need to just work on playing in a way more similar to how I was playing when I was younger.”

Raducanu’s ambitions are clear, yet her belief that she can compete with the game’s biggest hitters seems flawed given the evidence we have seen on court in recent years.

While she competed well despite two defeats against world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka last year, she was heavily beaten by Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina, who simply had too much firepower for her.

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Roig’s solution to that problem was to try and add some drop shots, variations in spins and even experiment with new rackets heading into 2026, but the changes were not giving Raducanu the results she needed.

The what comes next question has been asked time and again as Raducanu has rattled through coaches and what is clear is she needs to find a mentor who is willing to work on a brand of tennis that may be tough for her to execute against the best in the world.

Her run to last year’s Miami Open quarter-finals saw her produce some emphatic displays of big hitting that may well have convinced the British No 1 that she needs to lean back on what she feels she does best in her effort to break back into the top 20 of the rankings.

The trouble is, Sabalenka, Rybakina, Swiatek and most of the players at the top of the women’s game will not fear a big-hitting shoot-out against Raducanu as the last four and a half years have told us there is only one winner in that battle.

Raducanu may feel she needs to do what she feels she does best to rediscover her fear factor, but the brutal reality is that plan has already been tried and it failed to give her the glory she craves.