Emma Raducanu dismissed her latest coach, Vlado Platenik, after just 14 days on the job but the Slovakian has made a surprising revelation about his short time in charge.
The 49-year-old linked up with Raducanu on short notice in Indian Wells, before the Brit lost to Moyuka Uchijima in straight sets, then continued working with her ahead of the Miami Open – where she beat world No 188 Sayaka Ishii in style in the first round on Wednesday.
But Platenik wasn’t courtside for the match following a phone call the previous evening in which he was relieved of his duties after just a fortnight. Raducanu’s management team released a statement, saying: “Emma has the utmost respect for Vlado and the work they started but it wasn’t quite heading in the right direction.”
The 22-year-old Raducanu is renowned for burning through coaches, having had seven different people take up the role during her short professional career to date.
Despite the eye-openingly short tenure, Platenik had nothing but positive things to say about Raducanu and even revealed that she was learning at a quicker rate than any of his former charges.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Platenik said: “I never had a player who improved as fast as Emma,” said Platenik. “We had a hard but good eight or nine days of practice. We worked a bit differently than she was used to, improving a lot especially on footwork positioning.
“Emma said she wanted to pause the collaboration. I understand that she is under a lot of pressure and it’s not easy for her, so I respect her decision.
“I wish I had more time with her. But that’s sport, Emma is super talented and I hope she could take some of my advice for the future. I wish her all the best.”
Platenik had expected to continue coaching Raducanu at least until the French Open in late May but the Brit will now presumably search for another new coach as a permanent replacement for Nick Cavaday, who stood down for health reasons in January.
Ahead of the Miami Open, the Platenik had been focusing on improving the 2021 US Open champion’s serve, which fell apart at the Australian Open when she threw in 24 double faults across just three matches. Raducanu had hurt her back in the off-season and was trying to change her service technique to cope with that.
During the win over Ishii in Miami, Raducanu sent down just one double fault and was only broken once, suggesting that Platenik’s work was already having an effect
“We also improved the serve with higher toss, and worked a lot on second serve where she also had a bad toss,” he explained. “Now she can use the kick-serve more and be more aggressive even on second serve
“I really like her progress and I liked the way she played her match in the first round. It was a very clean match technically and tactically. If she can keep stabilising those things we were working on, she can get back into the world’s top 20, but I am always careful about setting limits. If a girl is working there are no limits.”
