Emma Raducanu praised for ruthless approach to coaching by former British No 1 – ‘I wish I did that more’
Emma Raducanu’s unconventional approach to her coaching team has faced a lot of scrutiny, but Johanna Konta admits she “admires” Raducanu for not being afraid to pull the trigger when things are not working out.
Although Raducanu has played top-level tennis for just over three years, she has already had multiple coaches with some only given trial runs.
Nigel Sears was at the coaching helm when she made her debut in June 2021 and he was also in charge for her run to the fourth round at Wimbledon.
But she changed coaches soon after and Andrew Richardson – who coached her at youth level – was in her box when she went in a glorious title run at the 2021 US Open, but they didn’t continue their partnership after the tournament.
A few months later she hired Torben Beltz, but they parted ways in April 2022 after only five months and later in the year she worked with Dmitry Tursunov on a trial basis.
The Tursunov partnership also didn’t last long and she also gave Sebastian Sachs a go, but no permanent offer was made.
She started working with another one of her youth coaches, Nick Cavaday, at the start of this year while Jane O’Donoghue also joined her camp for the grass-court season.
They have had great success in recent months with Raducanu reaching the semi-final of the Nottingham Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon with those results helping her to return to the top 100 of the WTA Rankings.
Some have criticised her for chopping and changing coaches, but Konta is impressed with her “mature approach”.
“She has a thought, she has a direction in mind, and she goes for it and she makes the decision, and I think that’s a very mature approach for a young player,” she told Sky Sports Tennis.
“And the same thing with her coaching team. I wish I did that more where I felt like a coaching situation wasn’t working, I didn’t wait for it to run its course because of how I thought the media would start speaking about it.
“I really admire her for her conviction in how she goes about deciding things for her career.”
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Raducanu defeated ninth seed Maria Sakkari in straight sets during her recent Wimbledon run before coming unstuck against qualifier Lulu Sun in the fourth round.
After initially being outplayed in the first set, the 2021 US Open winner hit back in the second set to take it to a decider before going down 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.
Konta believes there were plenty of positives against Sun despite the outcome.
“I think it’s great to see her again have four successive matches,” said Konta, a three-time Grand Slam semi-finalist.
“I think her last match against Sun was actually really positive. I don’t think we’ve had enough of a chance to see Emma in a situation where a lot of resistance has been put up against her.
“I think it was actually positive to see her in that space, especially how she dealt with that first set where Sun played really smart against her. To then see Emma really get stuck into that second set and turn the momentum a bit.
“Ultimately I think in a player’s career this is where you spend most of your time. You’re not going to spend your career just rolling through everybody.
“She will start winning these matches more and more and I think that’s where your deep-rooted confidence in you as a competitor and you as a player and what you can do out there, how you can problem solve, really comes from.
“The more she can be here, I think the more resilient a player it will make her and ultimately I think it will be what makes her a really, really great tennis player.”
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