Emma Raducanu 2.0 in the ‘very early days’ and no need for ‘knee-jerk reaction’, says former coach
Emma Raducanu remains on the right path to return to the very top of her game with her former coach Mark Petchey saying her early exit from the US Open will be “a great data learning process” for her new mentor Francisco Roig.
Following Nick Cavaday’s decision to step down as her head coach after the Australian Open to focus on his health, Raducanu started working with Petchey on an informal basis and they had decent success.
She reached the quarter-finals of the Miami Open and HSBC Championships while she also made it to the third round at Wimbledon. Her North American hard-court swing started with a run to the semi-final of the Citi DC Open before she announced that Roig – who was part of the great Rafael Nadal’s coaching set-up from 2005 to 2022 – would join her team for the rest of the 2025 season.
Their first tournament was the Cincinnati Open and Raducanu lost in the second round against Aryna Sabalenka, going down in three sets, before losing to Elena Rybakina in the third round at the US Open.
But there is no doubt that there were positive signs for the 2021 US Open following her decision to team up with Roig.
“Obviously, it’s very early days with her and Francisco. Her defeat would still have been a great data learning process for him in terms of what he wants to do with her this week while they are in Barcelona,” Petchey told tennis betting site BetVictor.
“This will include what she needs to do to be able to contend and take a match more into her hands rather than completely leave it inside.
“It’s not just Rybakina, it’s Sabalenka, and others, who at times can just take the racket out of her hand. Coco is the same on clay.”
Raducanu has struggled to hit the heights she did during her 2021 US Open title run, but her recent performances suggest she is on the up again as she has returned to the top 35 in the WTA Rankings.
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She only has 108 points to defend during the final few months of this year and a few wins at her upcoming events could see her secure a seeding position for the 2026 Australian Open.
Petchey, though, is pleading for patience as he added: “She’s four months into the second part of her career. This is career 2.0 for Raducanu.
“We would all have hoped that things would have turned out differently at the US Open to the way that they did. But it was no great surprise, therefore there was no great seismic shock and no great need for some knee-jerk reaction to everything.
“It’s just more validation that you need to find the path that you believe is going to bring you success and find the people that are going to bring you that success and stick with it and every day compound that improvement by 0.1 % and she’ll find a way.
“I can’t sit here today to tell you whether it’s going to be 12 months, 24 months or 36 months, but already she’s had one hell of a career. She’s already done the hard work by winning one [a Grand Slam]. She has just got to try to find a way to enjoy the process to get to the second one.”
