{"id":8827,"date":"2026-03-05T16:45:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/05\/my-natural-way-of-playing-has-been-coached-out-of-me-raducanu\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T16:45:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:15:41","slug":"my-natural-way-of-playing-has-been-coached-out-of-me-raducanu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/03\/05\/my-natural-way-of-playing-has-been-coached-out-of-me-raducanu\/","title":{"rendered":"My natural way of playing has been coached out of me &#8211; Raducanu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/c5yd7pzqx6pt\">Russell Fuller<\/a>Tennis correspondent,\u00a0AtIndian Wells, California<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published5 March 2026, 07:00 GMT<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comments\">998 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Updated 39 minutes ago<\/p>\n<p>British number one Emma Raducanu says she is going to be &quot;tapping into a few people&quot; as she tries to rediscover her natural way of playing.<\/p>\n<p>The 2021 US Open champion says she remains open to the idea of having another full-time coach &#8211; as long as they do not dictate the way she should play &#8211; but is wary of the scrutiny they will attract.<\/p>\n<p>Raducanu&#x27;s partnership with Francisco Roig <a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/cx2l3e18jrzo\">ended<\/a> after January&#x27;s Australian Open because of a disagreement over her playing style.<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard was the seventh full-time coach Raducanu had worked with.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Right now, it&#x27;s more about bringing my instincts back out, getting back in touch with myself,&quot; Raducanu told BBC Sport after a two-hour practice session before her first match at Indian Wells in California.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I have had a lot of people telling me what to do, how to play, and it hasn&#x27;t necessarily fit.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;So I want to come back to my natural way of playing. That takes time to relearn because that&#x27;s something that has been coached out of me a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I don&#x27;t necessarily want to have one coach in the role because anyone I bring in is straight away going to be scrutinised &#8211; even if it&#x27;s a trial.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I might feel the pressure to stick with them, even if it&#x27;s not necessarily the right decision.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I would love to have a coach that works well, but I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s necessarily going to be easy to find one person and they are going to check every box.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I definitely have my mind open to it. It&#x27;s just that I would rather someone not come in and tell me &#x27;let&#x27;s do this&#x27;, and I disagree with it but have to listen to them.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;So far Alexis [Canter] has been really good, but I am definitely going to tap into a few people here and there.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Petchey helping in day-to-day role<\/h2>\n<p>Mark Petchey is at the top of that list. His day job with the Tennis Channel brings him to Indian Wells anyway, and he has answered the call for assistance.<\/p>\n<p>He has been on court regularly this week and, even though the arrangement with Raducanu is on a day-to-day basis, it is possible that Petchey could resume the ad hoc role he had last spring.<\/p>\n<p>Petchey, who coached Andy Murray at the start of his career, joined Raducanu&#x27;s team in Miami last March as she reached the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p>He was also a regular presence throughout the clay-court season, when Raducanu reached the fourth round in Rome.<\/p>\n<p>Raducanu said she asked for Petchey&#x27;s help as she felt uncomfortable about her game, and has noticed an improvement over the past few days.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I work really well when I&#x27;m with him,&quot; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m really happy to be on the court and just really enjoy it overall. I&#x27;m not sure, going forward, what it will look like.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Raducanu aims to bounce back from Middle East swing<\/h2>\n<p>Canter has limited coaching experience and very much takes a back seat when Petchey is also on the court.<\/p>\n<p>But Canter was with Raducanu as a hitting partner in Washington last summer when she made the semi-finals, and also in Cluj last month when the world number 24 reached only the second final of her career.<\/p>\n<p>Raducanu <a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/cpv84y1yn7go\">did not win a match<\/a> in Doha or Dubai, where she had a chest infection, but is healthy again for Friday&#x27;s second-round match &#8211; following a first-round bye -against qualifier Anastasia Zakharova.<\/p>\n<p>Raducanu has had a full week of practice to get used to the thin desert air and the Californian sun.<\/p>\n<p>She thinks the best way to climb the rankings is by trusting her natural instincts &#8211; irrespective of who is in the coaching box.<\/p>\n<h2>What is Raducanu&#x27;s natural way of playing? &#8211; analysis<\/h2>\n<p>By<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/topics\/crm3j119x37t\">Jonathan Jurejko<\/a>BBC Sport senior tennis reporter<\/p>\n<p>Remember when Raducanu caused a seismic shock by winning the 2021 US Open as a teenage qualifier who had barely played a professional tournament?<\/p>\n<p>She managed to achieve the unthinkable by playing with a freedom which she has not been able to replicate consistently since.<\/p>\n<p>Almost five years later and having reached the last 16 of a Grand Slam tournament only once since, Raducanu is determined to get back to basics.<\/p>\n<p>That means rediscovering her natural instincts to be an aggressive baseliner. Her early success was built around not being afraid to take returns early in a bid to hustle opponents.<\/p>\n<p>First serves were put back deep in the court to instantly put her rivals on the back foot and second serves were swatted away with impunity.<\/p>\n<p>Raducanu&#x27;s power off both wings was impressive, although it was clear her forehand needed more work than her solid and stylish backhand.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next year or so, the forehand deteriorated to a place where it lacked any punch and, following the wrist surgery which ruled her almost completely of the 2023 season, is what Roig tried to remodel.<\/p>\n<p>The lack of trust in what Raducanu was being asked to do, though, was clear at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n<p>In a demoralising second-round exit, she made 19 unforced errors off that wing and spoke afterwards about returning to a simple philosophy &#8211; &quot;hitting the ball to the corners and hard&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>There is another aspect to Raducanu&#x27;s ambitions of returning to the top 10 and challenging the very best players &#8211; her body and mind.<\/p>\n<p>She must continue to build fitness and durability, and have the heart for a scrap in tough moments, to implement the style she wants.<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\">Tennis<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/tennis\/scores-and-schedule\">\n<p>Live scores, results and order of play<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/articles\/cl5q9dk9jl3o\">\n<p>Get tennis news sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published16 August 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raducanu to &#x27;tap into a few people&#x27; over coachingImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Emma Raducanu is ranked 24 in the world, her highest ranking since 2022ByRussell FullerTennis corres&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}