Emma Raducanu’s US Open winning coach opens up about split – ‘I got a brief call from her agent. That was the end of it’

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Emma Raducanu in action

It was widely believed that Andrew Richardson was keen on ending his coaching stint with Emma Raducanu following her fairytale run at the US Open, but the man himself has set the record straight.

Richardson mentored Raducanu at Flushing Meadows in 2021 as the then-18-year-old stunned not only the tennis community but the sporting world as she won 10 matches without dropping to set to become the first qualifier – man or woman – to win a Grand Slam.

Barely two weeks after her glorious US Open title win she confirmed that she and Richardson, who only took up the post in July 2021, had parted company as the original contract was only short term. At the time it was reported that Richardson wanted to pursue other options while Raducanu was keen to work with a coach who had experience at the top level.

And so they went their separate ways, but Richardson has come out and opened up about their split.

“The fact of the matter is that a I had a nine-week trial contract that both Emma and I thought was a good idea to see how we would get on, and it ran through to the end of the US Open, stopping immediately afterwards,” he is quoted as saying in the Daily Mail.

“There was a period of time after that when I was keen to re-negotiate the contract. I wanted to carry on, and I had a plan that I wanted to put in place for Emma. This thing about ‘I wanted to go off and coach my son’ is not true, but it seems to come up all the time.

“After probably ten days to two weeks (following the Open) I didn’t have a contract. We were in the process of re-negotiating and then I got a brief call from her agent telling me they were going to go in a different direction, and that was the end of it.”

Since then Raducanu has gone through several coaches – including Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov and Sebastian Sachs – but no one has been able to help her to regain her best form as she has slipped out of the top 100 of the WTA Rankings.

Her slide will continue over the coming months as she is currently sidelined after undergoing surgery on both her wrists and ankle.

Richardson, though, has moved on and while he has had offers to coach on both the ATP and WTA Tours, he has opted to work with his oldest son Rocco.

“I certainly learned a lot from the whole experience,” he said. “Life has moved on and I’m very busy.”

He added: “Since what happened with Emma I’ve had offers to go back on the tour, both WTA and ATP. The timing wasn’t right, but going back on the tour is definitely something I want to do in the future.

“I have a situation here where my son has the best chance of pursuing his tennis, he is thriving and enjoying it, and also we are at the start of a project here which is exciting for me jobwise.”

READ MORE: Serena Williams’ former coach ‘would love to work with’ Emma Raducanu

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