Emma Raducanu gains unlikely ally in Nick Kyrgios as Australian star leaps to her defence over sacking coaches
Emma Raducanu is right to persistently sack coaches, Nick Kyrgios has suggested.
The Australian firebrand says Raducanu is silencing her critics amid her run to the Miami Open last 16 – after sacking coach Vlado Platenik over the phone after just one match and 14 days together.
She has sacked seven coaches in the space of four years and leaves little room for sentimentality. Even Andrew Richardson got the chop shortly after her 2021 US Open triumph.
Raducanu has marched through three rounds into the Miami Open last 16, even scoring a third career win against a top-10 player in Emma Navarro.
The 22-year-old, ranked 60th in the world, is competing for 1,000 ATP points and a top prize of almost £870,000 in Florida.
After Raducanu surged past McCartney Kessler – who retired at 6-1, 3-0 down – Kyrgios wrote: ‘People awfully quiet that Radacanu is winning now.
Emma Raducanu is right to sack coaches when it pleases her, Nick Kyrgios has suggested
The Australian, who has not had a coach for almost eight years, said they are ‘overrated’
Raducanu is into the last 16 of the Miami Open and has been playing some of her best tennis
‘Where all the experts at now?
‘Lol coach’s overrated [sic].’
Kyrgios, of course, has a vested interest in this argument – he hasn’t had a coach for almost eight years.
He has knocked back coaching offers from the likes of John McEnroe and Boris Becker.
It has worked for him, to some extent. Kyrgios has had a good career, even reaching the Wimbledon men’s singles final in 2022, where he lost in four sets to Novak Djokovic.
He told Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast i 2023: ‘I wouldn’t want to put them through that (coaching me).. Some days I just don’t feel like playing. They can’t. I’ve had coaches before and it’s been okay.
‘I just think for me it’s really hard to bring someone on your team, especially now. Everything I’ve created has been like my best friend, a tight-knit group. I just can’t bring someone else into the team now. It’s just too far gone.’
If Raducanu can beat Amanda Anisimova on Monday night, it will be the first time she has won four matches at one event since her 2021 US Open title.
Vlado Platenik is the latest victim of the 22-year-old’s hire-and-fire strategy – after two weeks
She has binned off seven coaches in four years, including Andrew Richardson (left) after she won the 2021 US Open
We first saw her split with Nigel Sears after she reached the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2021
Up until her arrival in Florida it had been a wretched year for Raducanu.
She made the third round of the Australian Open despite a clearly malfunctioning serve.
Then her coach Nick Cavaday stepped down for health reasons and six defeats in seven matches followed.
There was also the stalking trauma in the middle east and when, on the eve of her first match in Miami, she split with coach Platenik it felt like her season was descending into chaos.
But she has played some of her best tennis at the Miami Open and feels she has become more self-expressive.
‘I’d say I’m a bit of a free spirit so I don’t like restrictions or being told what to do,’ she said.
‘When I’m really authentic, that’s when I play my best.’
