Powderpuff display sums up a young star who has stalled and requires proper support
Raducanu arriving without a coach is one of the strangest experiments a grand slam champion has ever attempted
“Pretend we’re in New York,” one wag cried out, trying to rouse Emma Raducanu out of her Centre Court funk. It was, for once, a fitting interjection, since the player who had torn her way to a US Open title with such heedless abandon was nowhere to be seen. Tentative and constantly second-guessing herself as Caroline Garcia put her to the sword, she stalked off without even a backward glance for the crowd who had cheered her like a pop star.
The delirious smiles of 10 months ago gave way here to a fog of dejection. She looked, quite frankly, like a lost soul.
As she gathered her thoughts ahead of the final game, she took a long, searching look at the players’ box. There were, in fairness, many people to count, from her agent to her osteopath, from her mother Renee to her “invisible mentor” Jane O’donoghue. Still, two figures were conspicuous by their absence. The first was her father Ian, understood to have advocated much of the technical tweaking that has so muddled her game. The second was a coach.
For Raducanu to arrive at Wimbledon without a coach must count as one of the most bizarre experiments ever attempted by a reigning grand slam champion entering her most important tournament of the year. She insisted this month that she felt no urgency to appoint anyone. And yet this was a display crying out for somebody to tell her what she needed to hear, rather than just what she wanted to hear.
It was a powderpuff performance, with her second serve fluttering over the net with all the potency of a swallow that had hurt its wing. The initial temptation was to give her the benefit of the doubt, to remember that she had suffered a recent side strain and was still readjusting to full-bore exchanges from the baseline. Except Raducanu offered no such excuses for her physical condition, insisting that she “didn’t feel anything”. As such, it seems only fair to judge her by her official status as the 10th seed and as the only player, male or female, to win a major as a qualifier.
She is now a full year advanced from her stunning breakthrough at Wimbledon, where she reached the fourth round on her debut, and it is becoming difficult to deny that she has stalled.
In 14 events since the US Open, Raducanu has not gone beyond the quarter-finals anywhere. The explanations are so well-rehearsed that you could play them on a loop: that she is only 19, that people need to be patient with her, that her glory in New York was just one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments that might not be repeated for 100 years.
All these defences are fair, but they ignore the crucial changes to her support network between then and now.
At Flushing Meadows, she talked with pride and tenderness about “my team”.
They were a merry little band, led by her coach Andrew Richardson, a soft-spoken giant of a man. Richardson, modest and understated to a fault, appeared the perfect fit for Raducanu, a natural introvert. In six weeks, he took his protege from a tinpot Challenger in Chicago to a victory for the ages at Arthur Ashe Stadium. And how was he rewarded? With the sack.
It was a confounding decision, for which there has never been any adequate justification. Theories abounded that her game needed to evolve, that she could work out the answers for herself, and even, bizarrely, that she could benefit from having a multitude of coaching perspectives. If this sounded like a recipe for paralysis by analysis, then that is how it has turned out.
Raducanu was both physically underpowered and tactically confused against Garcia. She has not been the same player since she left Richardson’s side.
Last September, “Team Emma” were akin to a touring pub band who suddenly found themselves with a No 1 single. Today, she is tennis’s version of the platinum-selling megastar who can order any jewellery she desires.
The man in charge of her endorsement portfolio is Max Eisenbud, once agent to Maria Sharapova, the biggest diva of them all. It is a reflection of the staggering speed of her rise. But it also ensures an atmosphere around her that is colder and more corporate.
Was Eddie Jones right all along when he suggested she had too many off-court distractions? Raducanu has undergone a transformation that would challenge any young woman her age. But perhaps, in the process, she has also lost a little of the devil-may-care spirit that made her such an irresistible force.