Emma Raducanu's Latest Sacked Coach Reveals Reasons For Their Split
NewsSaturday, 22 March 2025 at 02:00
Emma Raducanu's search for a new permanent coach remains ongoing after she ended a trial with Vladimir Platenik, and the Slovakian discussed why the 22-year-old made that decision.
Raducanu has been without a permanent coach since the 2025 Australian Open ended. Nick Cavaday, with whom she had worked for slightly over a year, left for personal and health reasons.
That partnership with Cavaday was the lengthiest she has had with a coach. Raducanu's spells with Nigel Sears, Andrew Richardson, Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov, and Sebastian Sachs were short-lived.
Platenik, who has worked with WTA players such as Daria Kasatkina and Lulu Sun, must have known that Raducanu's abrupt departure was possible because of her track record of only staying with coaches for a short time.
However, the trial period that he and Raducanu started at the 2025 Indian Wells Open was short even by her standards. The 2021 US Open champion ended the trial after just two weeks and competed at the ongoing 2025 Miami Open without him.
Platenik discussed the split in an interview with BBC Sport. The coach thinks Raducanu's decision was influenced by the pressure She has been under since her infamous triumph at the US Open over three years ago.
"I totally understand Emma, she's not in an easy position. The world is looking at her after the US Open [which she won in 2021] and everybody is expecting - including herself - what she is going to do next. So for me it's absolutely understandable that she's under a lot of pressure. She told me she was feeling stressed."
"There are no hard feelings from my side. She finished the relationship in a fair way, maybe too quickly, but this is tennis, this is sport. We need to respect that. She was not feeling OK, and that was her decision. I didn't want to go into deeper communication about that. I think the player needs to feel good, and the player needs to make a decision. Sometimes you make a good decision, and sometimes bad."
Platenik admitted he was surprised by how Raducanu was working when he started started with her and feels his guidance helped the Briton during her opening round win in Miami, even though she split with him before that match.
"She was not really able to stay in the rallies, there were a lot of problems to play on the move with the different speed, different spin and different angle. We had a good discussion, the communication was good from her side. I was very happy because I really must say that I never had a player improving that fast - in eight, nine days."
"She was getting a lot of things very fast. And I think it also showed in the first round [victory over Sayaka Ishii in Miami]. She was playing very correct, technically and tactically - exactly what we were practising, so I'm happy and I hope that she could take something out of my help."
Although the split sounded pretty amicable, Platenik revealed that an interview he gave to the Slovakian newspaper Dennik N, in which he said Raducanu had been through hell since winning the US Open, caused her anxiety.
"Emma is stressed also about the newspaper article, so the agent made this comment: 'It's maybe a little bit unfortunate, but I'm not angry.'"
"I'm always saying the truth, because tennis is an honest sport. I was always honest, maybe I was too honest and a lot of players and parents and people around players don't like it, but tennis is an honest sport."
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