Emma Raducanu could follow Novak Djokovic’s lead when she hires a new coach

Kevin Palmer
Emma Raducanu and Goran Ivanisevic
Emma Raducanu and Goran Ivanisevic

When Emma Raducanu appoints her next coach, she could follow Novak Djokovic’s lead by targeting a big weakness in her game.

Djokovic hired former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic to be his new mentor in 2019 and after already achieving so much, the legendary Serbian didn’t appear to have too many aspects of his game that needed to be improved.

Yet Ivanisevic, who had one of the best serves in the history of the men’s game, made a big impact on Djokovic’s serve and the success that flowed in their partnership confirmed he has taken greatness and moved it on to a previously unimaginable level.

While Raducanu confirmed she is a long way from being in the Djokovic class after she was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in her latest tournament in Abu Dhabi, hiring a coach of Ivanisevic’s stature would give her a new voice to listen and that voice would command respect. 

Many would question whether a demanding coach like Ivanisevic would fit into Raducanu’s world, but that may be what she needs as the issues that affected her ambitions at the start of 2025 rose to the surface once again.

Ivanisevic’s brief coaching partnership with Elena Rybakina may have ended after their initial trial period, yet his eagerness to work with a top female player confirmed he is open to new opportunities.

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“I always liked to watch women’s matches,” Ivenesevic told Tennis Majors.

“I have been on the Tour for 13 years now. The best four or five players have been there for some time now, some younger players are coming up, but the top 10 is more or less similar for a while now.

“I mean – tennis is tennis, men’s or women’s, forehand, backhand, serve… At the end of the day, I think it’s the same, although everyone is telling me that the WTA Tour is completely different. I need to experience it first-hand.”

After losing Iga Swiatek in the third round of the Australian Open and to Cristina Bucsa in Singapore last week, it is clear that Raducanu’s serve is not currently at a level that will allow her to compete for the game’s top prizes.

Each and every service game against Vondrousova was a struggle and she was broken five times from the ten times she stepped up to serve and some of the statistics from the match make for alarming reading.

Raducanu’s 64 per-cent first serve number is relatively impressive, as she landed 39 first serves from the 61 she attempted, but Vondrousova’s success in putting pressure on the Brit in every game suggested the direction and pace coming at her was not threatening.

We saw a similar tale in the Iga Swiatek and Cristina Bucsa defeats in Melbourne and Singapore, respectively, as Raducanu’s serve was put under intense pressure and that inevitably sees the rest of her game start to lose direction.

The unforced errors started to flow for Raducanu in the second set against Vondrousova and while she may not feel there were too many positives in this latest defeat, the reality is this is what she needs to do to give herself a chance to reach her goals in 2025.

The what comes next question has been hovering for Raducanu since Nick Cavaday confirmed he was leaving her team after the Australian Open, a bold coaching appointment that may now be needed to get this Grand Slam champion back on track.

The 33 matches she played last year were not enough to build up her physical resistance to the strains of playing on the WTA Tour, so she should be applauded for playing in Singapore and Abu Dhabi when it may have been easier to return to Britain and work on her fitness ahead of the Indian Wells and Miami WTA 1000 events next month.

“If she can stay healthy and competes a lot, the results will come because she’s that good,” said Sky Sports Tennis analyst Henman as he spoke about Raducanu.

“If she wasn’t good enough, you’d say she has to pick her tournaments and play some weaker events. With Emma, if she stays healthy, I’m convinced the results will follow.

“I never thought it was about her level. When she has played, her level has always been very good, but if you look at the breakdown of her ranking last year, I think she played 33 matches and 11 of them were on grass.

“When you look at the other 10 months of the year, to have only played 22 matches is so few. She is aware of that, I’m sure, and she will get a coach at the right moment, but for me, the physical work she is doing is most significant.

“I’ve always been a big, big advocate of playing matches. I always played a lot of matches.

“When you look at college tennis now, it is such a good opportunity because they compete match after match.

“When I started playing, you had to play lots of lower-ranked events to try and build yourself up. You look at Jacob Fearnley and he has played a lot of matches in college in America and has quickly transitioned to the tour.”

Raducanu could have gone to Romania for the WTA 250 event this week and potentially faced less damaging opposition than Vondrousova in the first round, but she is putting herself in a position to compete now and that is the only way she will test herself.

The concern must be with each defeat inked onto her record that elements of her game are simply not good enough to compete with the best players in the women’s game and at the top of that list has to be the serve.

Raducanu needs to find a coach who can work with her on finding a settled serve and turning to someone like Ivanesevic could offer her a chance to take her game to the next level.

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