Who is Emma Raducanu's coach? Trainer details of British tennis star

Author Photo
Emma Raducanu
Getty Images

Emma Raducanu has had an eventful time in the nine months since she sensationally became the 2021 US Open champion.

Still only 19, the British women's number one has enjoyed a meteoric rise towards the top of the WTA rankings, won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and separated from three coaches already in her career.

Ahead of the French Open, Wimbledon and her defence of her Flushing Meadows title, having the right backroom team could be crucial to Raducanu's prospects of establishing herself as a regular contender in 2022.

Who is guiding Raducanu right now and which coaches have worked with her in the past? The Sporting News takes a look.

MORE: Emma Raducanu injury worries grow amid latest tournament withdrawal

Who is Emma Raducanu's coach?

Ahead of the Madrid Open at the end of April, Raducanu surprisingly revealed that she had split with her coach, Torben Beltz, after the pair had worked together for only five months.

German Beltz is best known for helping turn Angelique Kerber from a precocious teenager to the world number one, and had purportedly been hired by Raducanu because she wanted an experienced guide during her early months on the WTA Tour.

Raducanu thanked Torben for his "professionalism and dedication" in a statement announcing the split, adding: "He has a huge heart and I have enjoyed our strong chemistry during the time together."

Iain Bates, the LTA's head of women's tennis, accompanied Raducanu in Spain, where she won two matches before being knocked out of the competition by Anhelina Kalinina. The star called that an "interim" move and said she wants to switch to a "new training model".

The 19-year-old doesn't have an official coach with her at Wimbledon 2022 but Jane O'Donoghue, a former WTA player herself and an LTA coach who served as the teenager's mentor during her formative years, was spotted in Raducanu's box at Wimbledon for her first round win over Alison van Uytvanck.

Who was Raducanu's first coach?

Prior to grabbing the spotlight with that remarkable win in New York, Raducanu had been working with Nigel Sears, who is the the father-in-law of British tennis great Andy Murray.

Sears had previously coached Serbian world number one Ana Ivanovic, and Raducanu split with him shortly before they were due to head to the US Open.

Who was Raducanu's coach when she won the US Open?

Andrew Richardson, one of Raducanu's youth coaches, was in her box when she beat Leylah Fernandez in straight sets in the US Open final.

That made it something of a surprise when she parted ways with the former player, who will always be able to say that he helped Raducanu to become the first British woman to win a grand slam since Virginia Wade triumphed at Wimbledon in 1977.

Why did Raducanu split from her coach?

The question of why Raducanu has been changing coaches so rapidly — four in under a year is a brisk turnaround even in the most demanding of individual sports — might never be known for certain.

There has been speculation that Raducanu takes the approach of quickly absorbing information from coaches and then dispensing with their services once she feels she has learned all she can from them.

MORE: Australia's 610th-ranked Daria Saville stuns U.S Open champion Emma Raducanu

Italian Ricardo Piatti has been named as a potential new coach for Raducanu after she prepared for the clay-court season by training at his academy, although she played that down as an arrangement of convenience.

Before succumbing to injury against Bianca Andreescu at the Italian Open in May, Raducanu said: "I'd describe myself as a loner.

"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."

Author(s)
Ben Miller Photo

Ben Miller is a content producer for The Sporting News.