‘Changing coach three, four or five times is unbelievable’
Beltz in November. But that never had the look of a lasting partnership and it ended last month.
Her father Ian is known for his conviction that tennis coaches tend to have certain areas of expertise. He believes that once you have mined their particular strengths, there is little point in keeping them around as travelling companions. But Mcenroe, who caused controversy last year when he said Raducanu had been overwhelmed by her Wimbledon debut, feels that she is being left exposed without an experienced mentor whom she can lean on from one week to the next.
Her own comments on this subject have veered from bullishly proclaiming her ability to function as a loner to asking for someone to hold her hand, sometimes within the space of 24 hours.
“I think movement is an issue for her,” said Mcenroe, after Raducanu’s 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 reverse at the hands of Sasnovich. “Obviously experience, she is still very young.
“We have got to keep a little perspective here. At Wimbledon last year she was unable to finish a match because of stress and it got to be too much for her. Then she came out and did something that no one has ever done – man or woman – in 150 years of tennis, coming from the qualifying and winning. She has changed coaches, three, four or five times which is unbelievable for someone who has just come off winning a major.”
Raducanu’s loss to Sasnovich marked the end of her first full year on the professional tour. In her own post-match press conference, she was keen to point out just how far she had come since this time last May when she was playing at the Connaught Club on the outskirts of Epping Forest.
“We were saying with my team this morning, it’s pretty much a year anniversary since my comeback to competitive tennis,” Raducanu said. “I was playing a Brit Tour [event] in Connaught. I think I have come a long way since then.”