Emma Raducanu’s contract disagreement and coach’s brutal admission after her dad’s letters

Emma Raducanu will hope her new coach can have an instant impact after she suffered a disappointing exit at Indian Wells. The former US Open winner lost to Moyuka Uchijima in her opening match on Thursday, marking six defeats in her last seven. Shortly before Indian Wells, Vladimir Platenik was hired to work with Raducanu–her seventh coach in four years–following her childhood mentor Nick Cavaday stepping down after the Australian Open for health reasons.

The 22-year-old has stated that previous coaches struggled to cope with her detailed approach to the sport. “I ask my coaches a lot of questions,” she told BBC Radio Four’s The Today Programme in October 2023. “On certain occasions they haven’t been able to keep up with the questions I’ve asked and maybe that’s why it ended.” However, Platenik could be the one to buck the trend, as the Slovakian coach came close to working with Raducanu soon after her US Open triumph in 2021.

Raducanu spent a trial week being coached by Platenik as a 17-year-old, and a deal was almost agreed for him to join her team in 2021. Despite his interest in the role, the two sides never finalised a contract. Platenik was unsurprised that Raducanu’s performances began to falter after she found herself in the spotlight, but he believes the British tennis ace is primed to bounce back after giving his honest verdict on her career so far.

“The pressure is enormous and the players want to succeed so much that they switch [things around],” Platenik told Slovakian newspaper Dennik N. “That’s why they often get injured. Emma also approached me in a similar situation right after a great success [in late 2021], which is why I said it could be coaching suicide [to work with her]. But now she is in a completely different position.