So, here’s how the last nine months have panned out for Emma Raducanu: she entered the second week of 2021 Wimbledon as a 338th-ranked wild card, won the US Open as a qualifier at 18, battled injuries and indifferent form and parted ways with coach Torben Beltz last month—her third coaching split in this period—for a “new training model” centered around self-learning.
The last bit, surprising as it may appear given her age, isn’t quite as unparalleled in professional tennis as the teen’s life-spinning exploits in London and New York last year. Some of her illustrious colleagues have embarked upon the coach-less route at different points in their careers while reaching varied destinations.
First, the Raducanu coaching musical chairs. Incidentally, London—the home Grand Slam that gave the Brit the stage and springboard to kiss history—is where it all began. After a breakthrough fourth-round at Wimbledon, Raducanu replaced Nigel Sears, an experienced coach on the WTA tour, with Andrew Richardson, who was in her box during the US Open fairy tale.
Barely a couple of weeks after her title, Raducanu parted ways with Richardson, seeking a coach with more “professional tour experience”. Enter Beltz, who has worked with the likes of Angelique Kerber, in November. Five months on, after a string of first and second round losses, Raducanu has let go of him as well.
Post the latest split, the Toronto-born youngster is in no hurry to fill the post, choosing to travel and train mostly by herself with the help of a coach from the LTA (Britain’s tennis governing body).
“I’d describe myself as a loner,” Raducanu said in Rome, where she plays the Italian Open this week. “For the past year… I’ve had a lot of people around me a lot and very often. To be on my own is interesting because I’m kind of finding out a lot about myself, understanding what I need and what I don’t need.”
Raducanu isn’t a pioneer at this self-discovery meets self-development crossroad. At different points of his career, Roger Federer has played without a full-time travelling coach, quite famously in the 2004 season. After the death of his former coach Peter Carter in 2002, the Swiss worked with Peter Lundgren for a year. Without a coach in 2004, Federer won three Grand Slams, 11 titles in all, and enjoyed a 74-6 win-loss record.
Much like Raducanu who wants to place a lot more emphasis on “sparring” in training, Federer, then 22, hit with a bunch of juniors during his couple of weeks at the title-winning 2004 Australian Open. Years later, the 20-time Grand Slam champion highlighted the benefits of being out there on his own for a while.
“I became No 1 in the world having no coach, really. I went through a period of time which was very interesting almost at the peak… I thought that was a great learning experience for me and that’s why I think I’m super stable today,” Federer said in 2010. “It was a very interesting period of my life and obviously I had to start taking decisions myself, which I used to not enjoy at all.”
Nick Kyrgios too has been without a coach on the tour for more than five years. For all his on-court antics, the maverick Australian says he does his own homework off the court, watching his opponents’ videos and examining their play patterns.
While Grand Slam success has eluded Kyrgios, Danielle Collins made the 2022 Australian Open singles final without a coach. She’s perhaps the closest parallel to Raducanu, having laid her game’s foundation on public courts in Florida while never really working with a long-time coach on the WTA tour. Yet, the 28-year-old American has entered a Slam quarter-final, semi-final and final in the last three years, and earned a spot in the top 10 rankings.
“I can certainly walk away proud without having a coach and kind of doing it on my own,” Collins told WTA. “I’ve had to do a lot on my own and a lot of homework, a lot of scouting, a lot of technical work. It’s been very challenging and mentally taxing at times. I’m learning a lot of things along the way.”
It’s what Raducanu hopes to extract from this experiment. According to veteran Indian coach Balachandran Manikkath, who has coached some of the country’s top pros, it isn’t such a bad thing for her this early in her career.
“Maybe she just wants to figure herself out for she has got to the big stage just some time back. She doesn’t want any influence, wants to be on her own for some time, play some tournaments and then come to an idea that this is where I need help. And then look for a coach who can fill with those details. Whether going alone will do wonders, I doubt, but this time of going alone will help her make a decision for the future with regards to a long-term coach,” Balachandran, an ITF level 3 coach, said.
Raducanu’s last two tournaments have delivered her the best results since October when she was still basking in her US Open glory. On clay where the 19-year-old is yet to feel at home, she reached the Stuttgart Open quarter-finals—she lost to world No 1 Iga Swiatek—and the Madrid Open Round of 16.
“I feel like right now I’m very comfortable with my current training,” Raducanu said in Madrid. “I’m feeling very confident in what I’m doing and how I’m working.”
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