Emma Raducanu believes she is on the right track as she continues to adjust to life on tour despite describing her decision to part from her coach, Torben Beltz, this week as “tough”.
Raducanu said her decision to move on from Beltz was a reflection of the comfort she has found on the court during their work together rather than a failure of their partnership.
“Torben is a very great guy,” she said during her pre-tournament press conference at the Madrid Open. “I really enjoyed my time with him on and off the court. He is one of the nicest people I’ve met so it was a tough one to split with someone like that, but I feel like right now I’m very comfortable with my current training and how I’m training.”
A third coaching split in 10 months has drawn further attention to Raducanu’s unconventional perspective towards coaching, with she and her father favouring short transactions with coaches, learning from them and then seeking out new information elsewhere. Raducanu says that her experiences this year have helped her to understand her needs.
“Going forward I’ll probably be putting a lot more emphasis on sparring,” she said, reported by the Daily Mail. “It is becoming more apparent to me as I spend more time on the tour is just getting used to these girls’ ball speed. I felt like in my quarter-final match (against world No 1 Iga Swiatek in Stuttgart), I was just trying to get used to the ball speed in the first few games and had a bit of a slow start because of that.”
After a torrid beginning to 2022 with various injuries and first-round losses, Raducanu won her debut Billie Jean King Cup match in Britain’s narrow defeat by the Czech Republic and then she reached her first WTA 500 quarter-final in Stuttgart. Riccardo Piatti remains the clear favourite to work with Raducanu next after she trained at his prominent academy ahead of the clay court season.
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In her first-round match, Raducanu will face Tereza Martincova in Madrid, who she defeated in the Billie Jean King Cup. The quick conditions at altitude in Madrid are unlike most clay court tournaments, allowing players to play as they would on hard court and they are likely to suit Raducanu’s game more than most other events on the surface.
“I really don’t care how many times I’m losing in the first round,” she said. “To me it doesn’t mean anything right now because I’m actually enjoying the journey of picking myself back up and working through things.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Swiatek announced her withdrawal from Madrid, citing a shoulder injury and fatigue in the midst of a breakthrough run during which she has won 23 matches in a row and four consecutive tournaments.
