Emma Raducanu teams up with new coach for Indian Wells Open
There will be a new coach in Emma Raducanu’s player’s box at the Indian Wells Open, but he is a familiar face on the WTA Tour.
Raducanu has been without a full-time coach for a couple of months following Nick Cavaday’s departure at the conclusion of the Australian Open in January.
Raducanu travelled to her next event in Singapore with her mother and fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura while one of her long-term mentor Jane O’Donoghue and former youth coach Roman Kelecic were on hand to help out during the Middle East swing.
But the 2021 US Open winner has now turned to Vladimir Platenik for the WTA Tour’s 1000 event in California as he will work with her on a trial basis.
Slovakian Vlado – has he is fondly known as – has an extensive coaching history as has worked with Daria Kasatkina, Dominika Cibulkova, Belinda Bencic, Veronika Kudermetova and most recently Lulu Sun.
Platenik’s Career Highlights
Under Platenik’s guidance, Sun came through qualifying and famously defeated Raducanu in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2024 before going on to lose in the quarter-final against Donna Vekic.
The 23-year-old also finished runner-up at the Mexican Open a few months later rose to a career-high No 39 later in the year on the back of those successes.
Platenik also mentored Cibulkova to the semi-final of the French Open in 2009 and helped her to rise from No 158 in the WTA Rankings to No 12.
The 49-year-old Platenik will be in Raducanu’s box for the first time when she takes on Moyuka Uchijima in the first round in Indian Wells on Thursday.
He will be the seventh coach that the 22-year-old has worked with since she made her breakthrough in 2021, joining Nigel Sears, Andrew Richardson, Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov, Sebastian Sachs and Cavaday on the list.
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Cavaday was her longest-serving coach as he joined her camp ahead of the 2024 season, but decided to step down after the season-opening Grand Slam in order to focus on his health.
Both parties were happy with the progress they made last year, but Cavaday stated: “I am very happy to have been able to work with Emma over the last 14 months. At this moment in time, it’s important for me to spend some more time at home and prioritise getting back to full health which is hard to do with the extensive calendar.”
And Raducanu has had a tough time on the WTA Tour since Cavaday’s departure as she lost her opening matches Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Qatar before ending her losing streak with a first-round victory over Maria Sakkari at the Dubai Tennis Championships.
She then lost against Karolina Muchova in the second round.
Raducanu, though, is in no rush to appoint a full-time coach as she is “setting up trials”.
“I don’t want to rush into anything, but I’m looking, I’m finding options and setting trials up,” she told BBC Sport ahead of the Indian Wells Open.
“I think once I have a structure in place, I will feel very set – whereas in the Middle East it was very difficult for me because I didn’t really have any direction or [advice on] which tournaments to play, and it was very difficult doing it all on my own.
“I’m that kind of person who needs a plan and needs preparation. That’s what I’m building and that’s making me feel more comfortable.”
