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Emma Raducanu says she is determined to wrest back control of her “natural” tennis style, with the British No 1 eager not to be bound by the diktats of a single coach.
“I want to come back to my natural way of playing. That takes time to relearn because that’s something that has been coached out of me a little bit,” Raducanu told BBC Sport. “I have had a lot of people telling me what to do, how to play, and it hasn’t necessarily fit. I don’t necessarily want to have one coach in the role because anyone I bring in is straight away going to be scrutinised – even if it’s a trial.
“I might feel the pressure to stick with them, even if it’s not necessarily the right decision. I would love to have a coach that works well, but I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be easy to find one person and they are going to check every box.
Raducanu is back in action this week at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, where a good run could lift her from her world ranking of 24th. It has been another turbulent start to a season for the 23-year-old, who went into the Australian Open underprepared because of a foot injury, parted ways with another coach in Francisco Roig, reached her first final since the US Open in Romania and then struggled with illness.
The split with Roig followed a second-round Australian Open defeat by Anastasia Potapova that saw Raducanu voice her unhappiness with the way she was playing under the Spaniard. She will be helped again in California by Mark Petchey, who served as an ad hoc coach for several months during the spring and summer last season, while her hitting partner, Alexis Canter, is providing day-to-day support.
Yet the former US Open champion is not ruling out hiring another full-time coach. “I definitely have my mind open to it,” she said. “It’s just that I would rather someone not come in and tell me ‘let’s do this’, and I disagree with it but have to listen to them. So far Alexis has been really good, but I am definitely going to tap into a few people here and there.”
While much of the focus is again on Raducanu’s coaching strategy, her compatriot and former world No 4 Tim Henman believes work in the gym and on the practice court should be the priority. “It’s still too stop-start,” he said. “She has to become physically more resilient to be stronger and faster to then compete with the biggest hitters and the best players.
“I understand the way she wants to play. She’s an attacking baseline player. If I could add one element to her game, it would only be on the physical side – to get stronger, faster, to hit the ball harder.
“You look at the physicality of a [Aryna] Sabalenka, a [Iga] Swiatek, a Coco Gauff, a [Elena] Rybakina, Emma’s not at that level. And to a certain extent, with her physique, she might not ever be at that level but she’s got to close the gap. She’s [24] in the world but I think there’s a lot of us that believe she can be a lot better.”
