Emma’s coaching merry-go-round ... madness or just the modern way?
Raducanu has raised eyebrows by trying host of trainers since her US Open miracle
At this point Andrew Richardson might have thought he would be preparing Emma Raducanu for her first tilt at Wimbledon as a bona fide star.
Instead, the former British Davis Cup player, who got a major assist in her astonishing US Open triumph, will be in Spain over the next two weeks. Rather than experiencing the maelstrom of SW19, Richardson will be with one of his sons at a domestic junior event in Valencia.
He has vanished off the map since being part of one of modern sport’s great stories, coaching Raducanu to the US Open title before not having their arrangement extended.
Since then he has chosen to keep the lowest of profiles, spending many weeks at the academy of former Spanish top 10 player David Ferrer in southern Spain.
He coaches part-time there while aiding the development of his promising offspring Rocco, who he accompanied to the renowned Orange Bowl junior tennis championships in Florida before Christmas. According to one staff member at Ferrer’s he has quickly become a popular and highlyrated part of their workforce.
Richardson, a self-effacing man who has never sought the limelight, has steadfastly refused to publicly discuss anything to do with his split from Raducanu.
However, it can be said that he would have been happy to continue after the US Open on more permanent terms. He was also keen to implement a strategic plan to take her forward during what was always going to be a difficult period of adjustment.
How successful it would have been we will never know and he will not be around to see how this fortnight goes. But it is assuredly the case that the intervening nine months have not been easy for someone who became, from nowhere, arguably the biggest name in British sport.
Even yesterday the uncertainty continued, with Raducanu cancelling scheduled practice on No 1 Court with former champion Garbine Muguruza. It is far from guaranteed that she will line up on Monday against the useful Belgian grass court player Alison Van Uytvanck. Expectations should be tempered if she does because, having completed her A-levels at school, Raducanu missed out on many of the building blocks upon which her contemporaries stand. It is as if she secured a first from Oxbridge having barely done her GCSEs.
There is no playbook for an unprecedented rise like hers and one should be careful in secondguessing coaching needs in an individual sport like tennis.
Yet what the removal of Richardson did was amplify the noise around her at a time when calm stability would have been hugely valuable. Her coaching and support team situation remains perplexing, to say the least.
The reason given for moving on from Richardson was that he lacked sufficient knowledge of the elite end of the women’s game. there was some logic to that, but it hardly applies to those she has been relying on most recently.
In the past couple of weeks she has been working with Jane O’Donoghue, who was a popular and highly-rated coach at the Lawn tennis Association until she left in 2019. O’Donoghue is now employed by the Royal Bank of Canada, having chosen to pursue an alternative career in finance. Also acting as a technical consultant has been the LTA’s veteran doubles guru Louis Cayer.
Remarkably, Cayer has been quite open in declaring that his priority remains male doubles players, rather than the British game’s biggest star.
It is perhaps telling that Raducanu, who has always done things her own way, has turned to O’Donoghue at this time. She is someone the 19-year-old implicitly trusts and who also gets on well with her parents.
They went on foreign trips in her junior days and have a mutual understanding. As someone interested in the world of finance, it is also likely that Raducanu respects her outside qualifications.
Her big coaching pick after Richardson was torben Beltz, who had success with Angelique Kerber. Although liking him on a personal level, she quickly worked out he was not a good fit for her and by late March they had parted.
Not everyone on the tour likes having a permanent coach and the Raducanus’ approach towards gleaning technical advice has always been transactional. Different styles suit different players.
What is more baffling though is the lack of a settled physio and trainer, especially for someone who knows the physical side of her game is a work in progress.
The LTA’s Will Herbert was her physio in New York but he continues to service other players as part of his duties with the national performance team.
When Raducanu played in the first round of the French Open, for example, he did not arrive for her match until late in the opening set. He was said to have been detained by commitments to other Brits. Raducanu’s manager, Max Eisenbud, this week spoke to the BBC’s Sport Desk podcast about how even an experienced operator like him had never known such interest in a client.
He explained that, contrary to some impressions, her portfolio of endorsements only requires 18 days of servicing each year. A calendar spreadsheet ensures commitments do not clash with tournaments or training.
‘We could have done 50 days of shoots,’ he said. ‘I have never seen the amount of excitement and companies who wanted to be in business with Emma. Doing 18 days we left millions and millions of dollars off the table.’
He insisted these had not impacted on her tennis, adding: ‘If she had zero shoot dates everything would have been the same.’
there is no doubt Raducanu was set back by catching Covid in December, in the middle of her pre-season training block. It could also be argued that her 6-5 match record during her first clay court season was a creditable effort.
Elsewhere it has been a tale of mainly defeats, calls for running repairs on court or retirements.
A good person to look at would be her fellow British No 1 Cam Norrie. He keeps life simple, has a settled support team and is maxing out on his natural ability.
If Raducanu can manage a version of that there should be glories ahead at Wimbledon and elsewhere, although it is surely too late for this year.