Emma Raducanu’s constantly changing position with her coaches may be offering her some unexpected benefits, according to Sky Sports lead commentator Johnathan Overend.
The 2021 US Open champion disposed of her latest coach after the Australian Open, as she hinted the tactics being promoted by Francisco Roig did not align with her ambitions.
Now she is preparing to head into a crucial month that will include two marquee WTA 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami with former coach Mark Petchey back in her camp on a temporary agreement.
The changing complexion of Raducanu’s set-up has sparked suggestions that she lacks clarity in the direction her career is headed, but Overend has offered up an alternative view.
“The two sides of my brain keep arguing with each other over what the best thing is for Emma and her coaching situation,” Overend told Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.
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“I think it’s a very obvious stance in a way, to say, what is she doing? What is this? That looks chaotic. It looks chaotic. This is madness. And it feels chaotic. I’m sure there is an element of the operation of Emma Raducanu PLC which is chaotic, but who are we from the outside to say it’s ultimately a bad thing?
“If she goes and wins a big tournament again, in a few months time, everyone will be saying, fair play.
“What I kind of quite like about it is the analogy of having a different teacher at every stage of your education.
“You don’t have the same teacher all the way through. You have a teacher one year, and you might say, ‘I really like Miss Green, because she taught me that’. And then, Mr. Edwards brought me so much encouragement there, and then I had Mrs. Singh, and she taught me this great lesson in life.
“So I quite like that, in a way. If she is holding on to those best practises and those best tips from all these advisors that she’s bringing in, that would be positive.
“To me, it’s getting the relationship. It’s getting the strategy that she feels can get the results, and then sticking to it.
“She needs to find an advisor who can help her with the technical improvement she still needs to make in a game, of which there are a fair few. And I’d like to think that she admits that. But who can encourage her to play the way she feels most comfortable playing? She needs to be playing with freedom.”
Raducanu has suggested she is keen to hit with power from the back of the court, as she believes that give her the best chance to challenge the game’s elite players.
That method worked for her when she won the US Open over four-and-a-half years ago, but Overend is not sure it can be effective now.
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“The quote in Australia, when she’s talking about, I just want to hit it hard and flat into the corners,” he added. “It might not work in reality, but you do want her to be talking in that way about the rest of her game.
“You want to see that she’s had the discussion with the coach and they’ve agreed this is the way forward. And I want her to feel that that’s a strategy that she will enjoy executing.
“It fell under Roig that she didn’t really enjoy taking the strategy and bringing it onto the match court, and that is a recipe for disaster.
“So it’s about finding that coach who can help her with those changes, but also bring the strategy that is aligned with her desire to have fun on the court.
“I think if you can somehow find the middle ground, which is what I believe she’s searching for, if she can find that middle ground, then big things can still happen in Raducanu’s career.
“I’m still very positive in the Raducanu story because this is a player who’s gone from outside 300, inside the top 30, without having a result that makes you go, wow.
“Any player who’s gone from 300 to 30, you’d say good effort. Really well done. So why aren’t we saying that more about Emma Raducanu? I agree. It’s because of what happened in 2021. And that will forever be her greatest achievement, but also be the thing that people will… will judge you by. And you want to almost wish it never happened, and erase it from the memory.”
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