Emma Raducanu’s former coach Mark Petchey has assessed that the 2021 US Open champion “only has one choice” of playing style as he shared his thoughts on her start to the season.
Raducanu enjoyed a successful collaboration with Petchey between March and August last year, having previously been coached by the former British No 1 in 2020.
The Brit compiled a 20-10 record across the 10 tournaments she played while working with Petchey — the last of which was the WTA 1000 in Montreal.
The world No 25 has been without a permanent coach since last month, when she parted ways with Francisco Roig, who she had hired in August.
Raducanu entered 2026 following an off-season disrupted by a foot injury, and she holds a 6-5 record.
After starting the year at the United Cup, where she lost her only match, Raducanu reached the quarter-finals of the Hobart International and the second round at the Australian Open.
The 23-year-old then won four matches to reach the final at the WTA 250 event in Cluj-Napoca last week, before retiring in her opening round clash with Camila Osorio at this week’s WTA 1000 in Doha.
During the latest episode of Tennis Channel’s The Big T podcast, Petchey and former world No 9 Andrea Petkovic discussed Raducanu.
Petkovic:
“She had some physical issues at the beginning of the year, and I think her off-season didn’t exactly go ideally, right… It’s fair to say?”
Petchey:
“Yeah, I think it’s fair. We have messaged a few times. I did watch her play [in Cluj-Napoca].
“Obviously it was nice to see her get some wins, it was nice to see some confidence, it was nice to see the fight was back.
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“She was playing the way that she wants to play, that was something I think she felt that she had lost a little bit, in recent times.
“And I think from my perspective watching her play, she really only has one choice — she needs to stay up on the baseline, she needs to be able to redirect, and she needs to serve well. And if she can put those components on the court, she’s going to give herself a chance to win big matches.
“I thought she did well to kind of get through the draw. I don’t necessarily feel her tennis was where it needed to be. I do think that she was suffering a little bit from health problems.
“But I think she’s got a good three, four weeks of hard work to get her tennis back to where you would like to see her be, in terms of being able to challenge those big hitters, which has obviously been, in recent times, the stumbling block for her.
“And I think there is still work to do to kind of put that piece of the puzzle back together so that she can feel very comfortable with what she’s doing out on the tennis court.
“So it was a nice week for points, it was a nice week for confidence to know that you can put back-to-back wins together, but I would think that she would feel as though her tennis needs to go up quite a few gears if she’s suddenly gonna get back out on the court with [Aryna] Sabalenka and [Elena] Rybakina.”
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