As Emma Raducanu awaits her first match since the stalking incident in Dubai a fortnight ago, her management have confirmed that she will be joined in Indian Wells by a new coach.
The man chosen is Vladimir Platenik, an experienced Slovakian coach who happened to be guiding Lulu Sun – a then unknown left-hander from New Zealand – when she reached the quarter-finals of last year’s Wimbledon, beating Raducanu along the way.
This is still only a trial appointment, but unlike the recent locums who have helped out since Nick Cavaday stepped down on grounds of ill health, Platenik – who is 49 – is a serious operator with a strong reputation.
On his website, he highlights his work with his two best-known clients: the former Australian Open runner–up Dominika Cibulkova, whom he helped climb from No 160 in the world to No 12, and the deft Russian touch player Daria Kasatkina, who leapt from No 400 to No 24 under his tutelage.
It would be a huge surprise if this arrangement did not end up being finalised, whatever happens when Raducanu plays Moyuka Uchijima in Indian Wells on Thursday.
For one thing, she has already done a trial with Platenik when she was a teenager, and is said to have particularly enjoyed working with him. Indeed, Telegraph Sport understands that a deal of this sort was considered soon after the US Open victory of 2021, even if it never eventuated because the parties could not agree on contractual details.
The fact that Raducanu rates Platenik is significant, as she is known to have a low opinion of many tour coaches, and has all but admitted that this is the reason why she has run through six different main coaches in the four years since she first burst onto the professional scene.
The issue came up in an interview with BBC Radio Four’s Today programme in October 2023, soon after she had parted company with Sebastian Sachs – the fifth man in that sequence. “I ask my coaches a lot of questions,” she explained then. “On certain occasions they haven’t been able to keep up with the questions I’ve asked and maybe that’s why it ended.”
While Raducanu’s remark did not go down well with the coaching fraternity, she is hardly the only person to criticise their general contribution. In an interview released this week, the former top-10 player Janko Tipsarevic – who is now coaching Canada’s Denis Shapovalov – told The Tennis Podcast that “considering that tennis is the third or fourth most popular sport in the world, we [coaches] are at the bottom of the barrel”.
As Tipsarevic added: “There’s a tremendous amount of people on the ATP or WTA, which are glorified towel boys or towel girls. They do nothing else outside of saying ‘Well done, hope you feel well.’ They are afraid to confront the player or talk in a way that a coach should.”
While Tipsarevic’s words will resonate with many tennis insiders, there are exceptions to the rule. And Platenik – who is certainly not a glorified towel boy – is one of them.
Even if it was frustrating to see Raducanu’s productive coaching partnership with Cavaday come to grief because of his chronic health problems, Platenik looks the right man to fill the breach.
