Why Andy Murray would be the perfect coach for Emma Raducanu – and the key insight that he can use to resurrect her career: INSIDE TENNIS
Timing is everything in tennis. Not just in the sense of connecting sweetly with a forehand but in the fluid world of coaching appointments.
Emma Raducanu is in no rush to choose her next coach and quite right too. This is a decision she must get right and a player can learn a lot about themselves from a few weeks flying solo; it is good for the soul.
Three losses in a row since Nick Cavaday stepped down for health reasons have imparted a sense of urgency, however, and Raducanu looked especially lost in defeat by Ekaterina Alexandrova in Qatar on Sunday.
The problem is, the best man for the job is soon to be removed from the market. Andy Murray remains in talks with Novak Djokovic and they are likely to extend their coaching arrangement through to Wimbledon at least.
If there is any unexpected hiccup in the two old rivals’ discussions then Raducanu must not hesitate: Murray is the perfect man to unleash her talent. The time may not be right just now but there will come a moment when the stars align for these two to work together.
No one can better understand the weight of expectation on the 22-year-old’s shoulders. Even though their early careers were polar opposites – Raducanu made winning a Grand Slam look laughably easy, Murray tearfully hard – both grew up under a harsh spotlight. Both are victims of the peculiarly British fixation on tearing down a young star.
No one can better understand the weight on Emma Raducanu’s shoulders than Andy Murray
Both grew up under the harsh spotlight that follows a young British tennis star around
Strange to recall now, but Murray once carried the same reputation for physical frailty which Raducanu is still trying to shake off.
The 2021 US Open champion will never share Murray’s masochistic love for pain but the art of building a body equipped for the rigours of the tour, the crafting of a schedule to put matches in the legs while remaining fresh for the Grand Slams – this she can learn, and what better teacher than Murray.
You would have got long odds on such an alliance in mid-July last year, after the soap opera of Raducanu’s withdrawal as Murray’s mixed doubles partner in his final Wimbledon.
But, as she told us in Melbourne, Raducanu reached out to smooth things over and the two are on good terms. Indeed, Murray’s decision to choose her in the first place and Raducanu’s ecstatic response show the regard in which they hold each other.
A more pertinent issue is Murray’s likely unwillingness to travel full-time away from his young family. That brings us to an important point: whoever Raducanu appoints, she would do well to look for not one coach, but two.
This is the way the modern game is shifting. The demands on a coach are vast and span 30-40 weeks of the year. The pool of elite coaches willing to carve off such a portion of their life is becoming increasingly small.
So, many players, especially at the elite end of the game, have a No 1 and a No 2. Jannik Sinner has Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi; Carlos Alcaraz has Juan Carlos Ferrero and Samuel Lopez, who took the reins as he won the Rotterdam title last week. Coco Gauff has Matt Daly and Jean-Christophe Faurel.
Part of the motivation behind Cavaday’s decision to step away was an unwillingness – given his health issues – to commit to a full touring season, with Raducanu determined to play more events this year.
Murray has been working with Novak Djokovic and is set to continue working with him through this year’s Wimbledon
If there ever is a hiccup in the Djokovic-Murray relationship then Raducanu should be straight on the phone to her fellow Brit
In December, during a pre-season chat with Raducanu, she suggested she was already looking to recruit a second coach to take some of the pressure off Cavaday.
As she cycled through coaches at the start of her career, Raducanu oscillated between established names – Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov – and trusted allies from the past – childhood coach Cavaday or big-sister figure Jane O’Donoghue, who was with her in Qatar last week.
If she is deciding which way to turn this time then why not get the best of both worlds: a trusted confidante alongside a higher-profile coach.
If that latter appointment is not to be Murray, then Raducanu’s options are thin on the ground. The timing of Cavaday’s departure has not helped. Just as in football, there is an annual round of musical chairs in the tennis off-season and, as relegation-threatened Premier League clubs will attest, hiring a coach mid-season is less straightforward.
The most intriguing option is another man who has worked with Djokovic. Goran Ivanisevic is available after his brief and messy stint with Elena Rybakina.
Raducanu’s serve is becoming a major issue and who better to fix it than the man who aced his way to the Wimbledon title in 2001. If that sounds simplistic – hire big server to sort out your serve – that was Ivanisevic’s primary brief when he joined the Djokovic team in 2019 and he turned the Serb’s serve into a formidable weapon.
Brad Gilbert, one of Murray’s early coaches who left Gauff’s team last September, would be an ambitious choice. The 63-year-old is something of a mad genius but few know more about the tactics of tennis.
Either man would make an exciting appointment. But there is one partnership that will really get the pulses racing, even if it has to wait for another day, and another time.
Nick Cavaday (left) had to leave Raducanu’s camp as he battles health issues
Murray is the man to get Raducanu’s career back up and running again after a coaching carousel
Carlos Alcaraz channels his inner Ange…
It may seem an odd comparison between a 21-year-old Spanish tennis player who has just won his 17th career title and a 59-year-old Australian football manager who has been ushered out of two cup competitions in a week… but Carlos Alcaraz sounded a little like Ange Postecoglou in Rotterdam.
After his last-16 round win over Andrea Vavassori, Alcaraz said: ‘As I’ve said many times, getting the win is important but I’m here to entertain people. Make them happy, make them enjoy watching my matches.’
It could have been said by Big Ange after one of Tottenham’s white-knuckle rides towards disaster. Clearly, the cavalier style is working better for Alcaraz than for Postecoglou, but the suspicion remains that to truly fulfil his astronomical potential he needs to learn to win ugly a little more often.
One thing is absolutely true of Alcaraz. As Postecoglou once said: ‘When I’m long gone you’ll all pine for my entertainment’.
Carlos Alcaraz’s speech had the hallmarks of something Ange Postecoglou would say
US Open’s mixed reception
The US Open’s riff on the mixed event, announced on Tuesday, has succeeded in uniting the doubles community – in wrath and dismay. This year at Flushing Meadows the mixed doubles will be played the week before the tournament fortnight, in sets of first to four games.
In naked contempt for the traditional exponents, qualification will be based on singles, and not doubles, rankings. It is a peculiar way to decide a Grand Slam title and a bastardisation of an event won by Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams.
But interest in doubles is pitifully low and, if the USTA have somehow cracked the code of how to entice top singles players, if the 2025 final is Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka against Iga Swiatek and Jannik Sinner, then the ends will justify the means.
One to watch
Not a new name but a forgotten one. Denis Shapovalov – remember him? – won the Dallas Open on Sunday and is back inside the top 50 for the first time since Wimbledon 2023, when he gave in to persistent knee pain and took six months off.
It is hard to overstate how big a talent Shapovalov was reckoned to be; in 2017 at the age of 18 he was third favourite for the US Open, behind Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
It looks unlikely he will ever fulfil those lofty expectations but it will be good to see that ferocious single-handed backhand near the top of the game once more.
