I thought it was career suicide to coach Emma Raducanu – I changed my mind

Telegraph

07-03-2025

Emma Raducanu's new coach once thought working with her would be 'coaching suicide' but has changed his mind and is ready to help steer her to recovery.
Vlado Platenik – who arrived in Indian Wells barely a day before her latest match – believes Raducanu has 'gone through hell' and already experienced the worst part of her career.
In a fascinating interview with Dennik N, a daily newspaper in his native Slovakia, Platenik placed Raducanu's recent struggles – which on Thursday extended to a sixth defeat from her last seven matches – in the context of other precocious talents who have made sudden breakthroughs.
'A young player takes off with one great result and then has a hard time,' said Platenik, 49, an experienced figure who has already helped several other women achieve significant climbs on the rankings ladder.
'Her surroundings and the public expect her to repeat those results. Maybe 30 per cent of players fall out of the top 100 in a season after their first big result. Names like Hingis, Capriati, Benčič, Badosa or Lulu Sun [his previous client] also struggled.
'The pressure is enormous and the players want to succeed so much that they switch [things around]. That's why they often get injured. Emma also approached me in a similar situation right after a great success [in late 2021], which is why I said it could be coaching suicide [to work with her]. But now she is in a completely different position.
'She's already gone through hell, she's already been through the worst. She had a great year last year and they did a good job with her last coach. He left at his own request due to health problems. Today she's more mature than [at the time of] the previous offers.'
Platenik and Raducanu spent a previous trial week working together in 2020, when she was still only 17. Later, he considered taking the job full-time on two separate occasions: initially after her US Open triumph, when it went to Torben Beltz, and then when she was coming back from double wrist surgery and eventually turned to her childhood mentor Nick Cavaday.
While Cavaday and Raducanu developed an excellent rapport, health issues forced him to step down after January's Australian Open. Her results immediately went into steep decline, with just one win – against her favourite opponent Maria Sakkari – to show for the four tournaments she entered. There was also the horrible stress of dealing with a stalker who pursued her around all those events and was eventually dealt with by police in Dubai.
Asked whether his life had been complicated by the extra security following Raducanu in Indian Wells this week, Platenik replied 'The guards are very nice, so not at all. They just stand a little bit away from us, checking the situation and are nearby in case something happens. There are a lot of spectators at big tournaments and there is usually chaos. The situation with Emma happened in Dubai, where the chaos is even bigger, and I don't think that tournament is worthy of the WTA 1000 category. The venue does not meet the criteria for such a level at all. I don't want Emma to have that in her head, so I think it's pointless to talk to her about it. She has already processed it and handled it well.'
Returning to this week's appointment, everything happened quickly. Platenik only discovered shortly before Indian Wells that Lulu Sun – whom he had guided to the quarter-finals of last year's Wimbledon, beating Raducanu along the way – had decided to end their collaboration. At that point, he contacted Raducanu's father Ian.
'I wrote to Ian to ask if they had anyone, as I knew their interest in me was more long-term,' Platenik explained. 'Her father wrote back that they didn't have anyone and would like to try working with me.
'He explained to me that he was looking for a coach who could do [stroke] development. There are many coaches on the circuit who are considered top-notch, but who have no development experience. They [the Raducanu family] have been communicating with me for a long time because they consider me to be that kind of coach.
'Of course, I perceive that they change coaches often,' added Platenik, whose initial deal runs from Indian Wells to the French Open in late May. 'However, I want to help Emma, and if both parties recognise that I am successful, I believe that the relationship will last longer.'
In the aftermath of her disappointing loss to Moyuka Uchijima on Thursday, Raducanu was asked about Platenik. She explained that 'We haven't necessarily done that much yet, because he arrived very, very recently. It was the day before the match, where we don't necessarily want to change anything. So we haven't actually started proper work. He's very serious, he's very professional, gets on with it. So yeah, we'll see how it goes.'
In previous interviews, Raducanu – who is now working with her seventh full-time appointment in the space of four years – has placed some of the blame for that volatility on the people she has worked with. 'I ask my coaches a lot of questions,' she told the BBC in 2023. 'On certain occasions they haven't been able to keep up with the questions I've asked and maybe that's why it ended.'
Judging by this week's interview, Platenik will welcome the chance to debate the finer points of technique and strategy. 'She wants to learn, she wants to communicate,' he said. 'We sat for an hour-and-a-half watching her next opponent and she kept asking me, 'Vlado, what do you think about this?' Ninety-five per cent of players don't have anything like this. I always had to encourage them to do it.
'Technically, she plays decently,' he added, 'and it's really just about the details. About her feeling good and not getting injured. If she can keep training like this for a year, two, three, she can play really well and think about much better results.'
The most obvious areas for improvement, Platenik added, will lie in Raducanu's serve and forehand. Her backhand is already a very natural and reliable shot, while her movement is athletic and explosive.
He also commended her ability to implement changes, saying 'It's difficult during the season, but Emma is a great player and seems to be able to work on the details quite quickly. At the first practice I gave her a few tips on serving and other shots. It was more of a small thing, but she managed to implement them all.'
Returning to the theme of Raducanu's early fame, Platenik said 'She won a grand slam from qualifying, [but] her experience was small. It's happened to many players after a grand-slam title, look at Kenin or Ostapenko. Women's tennis is balanced and she won at a very young age. Maybe she needed a better team or a more experienced coach. But the pressure was huge and maybe it would have ended the same with the best team.'
Asked whether it is a misconception that Raducanu has been coasting since that remarkable breakthrough, Platenik replied 'That's exactly right. She doesn't look like she's complacent at all. Moreover, she has her feet firmly on the ground … unlike many players who are 80 in the world and behave a thousand times worse. They are often arrogant. Emma talks to everyone and is smiling. I am very satisfied with her approach – in both human and professional terms.'