Raducanu’s bad decision on coach who won her US Open

• Andrew Richardson has opened up on how it felt to coach Emma Raducanu
• She won her first grand slam at the 2021 U.S Open
• She hasn’t won any other since then

Andrew Richardson has opened up on how it felt to coach British tennis player Emma Raducanu who won her first grand slam at the 2021 U.S Open.

Surprisingly, he left the scene thereafter and Raducanu hasn’t won any other grand slam since then.

He is currently passing her charm at the Ferrer Tennis Academy in La Nucia where he is coaching several teenagers. Richardson is happy that he propelled Raducanu to success.

The harsh reality is that, at the youthful age of 20, she has since dropped out of the top 100 and is currently enduring three different surgeries.

It now appears that the decision to end her relationship with Richardson was the first in a string of errors and mishaps that led her to this situation. Both Richardson and Raducanu couldn’t predict the outcome of their separation, but she feels the heat of her decision with every match.

WHY DID EMMA RADUCANU DROP ANDRE RICHARDSON AS COACH?

Emma Raducanu emphasised that she was seeking someone with more tour-related experience in cutting ties with Andrew Richardson. Yet, the tennis coach left the scene like he was never there and continued with his low-key life.

Andrew Richardson with Emma Raducanu. Photo/tennis.com

Richardson avoids attention and maintains his silence ever since, even declining numerous interviews. Even now, he makes a point of refraining from commenting in any way on his work relationship with Raducanu who was only 18 then.

On his part, he states that there is a rumour that he did not want to work with Raducanu longer because he had commitments with his older son Rocco. That he wanted to mentor him but didn’t have a lot of time to do so.  But, Richardson discounts all this.

Richardson and Raducanu have no bad blood as many people would assume. They ended the contract on mutual understanding. The coach says that he had a nine-week contract with the 20-year-old British tennis player and it ended as soon as the 2021 US Open was over.

“The fact of the matter is that a I had a nine-week trial contract that both Emma and I thought was a good idea to see how we would get on, and it ran through to the end of the US Open, stopping immediately afterwards,’ he explains according to Daily Mail Sport.

WHAT HAPPENED WITH ANDREW RICHARDSON COACHING EMMA RADUCANU AFTER 2021 US OPEN?

Richardson remained open to renewing his contract with Raducanu after her success at Flushing Meadows in 2021. At no point did he harbour ambitions to let her go for the sake of his son Rocco as rumour has it.

“There was a period of time after that when I was keen to re-negotiate the contract. I wanted to carry on, and I had a plan that I wanted to put in place for Emma. This thing about ‘I wanted to go off and coach my son’ is not true, but it seems to come up all the time,” he adds.

Emma Raducanu. Photo/Sportskleeda

However, two weeks after the 2021 US Open, Raducanu’s agent called him and told him that she decided to take another route. That was the last of their conversation and they both went different ways.

Richardson knew that with success in 2021, the 2022 season would be difficult. She needed to cosy up to her new position and to fill up the technical gaps that would inevitability arise after such a meteoric climb. This called for a stable setting for her to grow physically, but this never happened.

During the nine-week period, he coached her, she improved her game in every match leading up to the US Open.

WHAT IS ANDREW RICHARDSON DOING NOW?

Andrew Richardson is now coaching at the Ferrer Tennis Academy. Nevertheless, he closely follows the progress Emma Raducanu is making. Unfortunately, she only has a string of losses.

Raducanu recently underwent her third surgery. She recently had an ankle surgery and two wrist surgeries.  She withdrew from the Madrid Open owing to a right-hand injury. She said that the pain she harboured for the last 10 months and it was time to get the surgery.

“It is safe to say the last ten months have been difficult as I dealt with a recurring injury on a bone of both hands,” she wrote on Instagram.