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New York Times
19-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Emma Raducanu and coach Vladimir Platenik part ways after just one match
Emma Raducanu and coach Vladimir Platenik have parted ways after working together for just one match, her management team confirmed on Wednesday. Platenik started working with Raducanu on a trial basis two weeks ago and was present during her first-round defeat at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. to Moyuka Uchijima on March 6. Advertisement However, Platenik, 49, was not seen in her box for Raducanu's 6-2, 6-1 victory over Sayaka Ishii at the Miami Open on Wednesday. After the match a representative from her team at IMG confirmed the split, stating that: 'Emma has the utmost respect for Vlado and the work they started but it wasn't quite heading in the right direction.' Platenik, a respected coach who has worked previously with top-10 players Daria Kasatkina and Dominika Cibulkova, and most recently Wimbledon quarterfinalist Lulu Sun, said in an interview with Slovakian outlet Dennik N two weeks ago that he expected to be working with Raducanu until and including the French Open. But Raducanu has now decided to move in a different direction after working with Platenik in Miami in the lead-up to the tournament. The last month has been extremely challenging for Raducanu, after a male spectator exhibited 'fixated behavior' towards her during her match against Karolina Muchova at the Dubai Tennis Championships on February 18. Raducanu became visibly upset when she spotted the spectator, who had approached her at a cafe a day earlier. The man gave her a letter containing his name and contact details and a printed photo of herself. After weighing up whether to take a break from tennis, Raducanu travelled to Indian Wells the following week with her fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura and British coach Tom Welsh, who supported her for the tournament. Platenik then joined the team, as Raducanu continued her search for a permanent coach to replace Nick Cavaday, who stepped down in January after more than a year in the role amid health concerns. If we include Platenik, Raducanu is now looking for an eighth coach in less than four years. Next up for her is a second-round Miami Open match against the American world No. 10 Emma Navarro on Friday. That's the focus for now, as the search continues for a new coach. 'Emma is now focused on doing as well as she can here in Miami after her solid start today and will continue looking for the right coach,' her team said on Wednesday. ()
Telegraph
07-03-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
I thought it was career suicide to coach Emma Raducanu – I changed my mind
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.'
Reuters
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Slovaks keep up protests against Fico and mark anniversary of journalist's murder
Summary BRATISLAVA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Thousands rallied in Bratislava and other Slovak cities on Friday calling for Prime Minister Robert Fico to resign and keeping up protests against a foreign policy that critics say pulls the country closer to Russia. Protests have happened every other week since early January, sparked by a December meeting between Fico and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare visit to Moscow by a European Union member since Russia's invasion of Ukraine three years ago. "Slovakia is Europe," crowds in Bratislava chanted, along with cries of "Enough of Fico". Dennik N news website cited a security expert estimating up to 12,000 people protested in the capital, down from more than 40,000 two weeks ago. Rallies were held in over 40 other cities. The rallies on Friday also marked seven years since the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, whose killing set off weeks of mass protests against perceived public corruption that led to Fico's resignation as prime minister at the time. Fico returned to power with a 2023 election victory and his leftist-nationalist government has raised worries among the progressive opposition and others due to moves to change criminal codes and revamp the public broadcaster. Fico ended state military aid to Ukraine and is in dispute with Kyiv over the end of Russian gas transit this year. He defends his foreign policy by saying it reaches all directions. Fico, long a dominant force in Slovak politics, has often waged a war of words against the pro-Western liberal opposition, non-governmental organisations and media, accusing them of conspiring against Slovakia. He congratulated U.S. President Donald Trump's government efficiency adviser, Elon Musk, this month for aiming to dismantle the main U.S. aid agency, saying its funds were used to "deform the political system" in Slovakia. Fico, in the United States to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, met Musk and said on Friday he was assured that what he called the era of funding for "anti-government" media and NGOs was ending. The four-time prime minister has vowed not to bow to protester demands that he should resign.
Russia Today
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
EU state arrests Ukrainian over alleged coup plot
A Ukrainian national has been arrested in Slovakia in connection with a coup threat, local media reported on Thursday, citing a police statement. The man, who has not been named, will be expelled from Slovakia and returned to Ukraine. The move comes after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has refused to follow NATO and EU policy on the Ukraine conflict and survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Kiev activist last year, linked recent anti-government protests in his country to interference by Ukrainians. Last week, up to 100,000 people took to the streets of Bratislava and other cities in protest at what they claim is Fico's perceived alignment with Russia. 'Currently, one person is at the border aliens police office, where administrative expulsion is being carried out,' police chief Jana Maskarova told Dennik N newspaper, adding that the Ukrainian national will be placed on the country's blacklist. On Wednesday, Erik Kalinak, head of the advisory council to Prime Minister Fico, alleged a link between recent anti-government protests in Slovakia and a military unit of foreign nationals fighting for Ukraine against Russia known as the Georgian Legion. In a post on X on Thursday, the Legion rejected the 'baseless and absurd accusations made by the Slovak authorities.' READ MORE: Maidan coup veterans behind cyberattack – EU state's PM The accusation came weeks after Kiev blocked the flow of Russian gas through its network to Slovakia and amid heightened diplomatic tensions between the two neighbors. Speaking on Tuesday, Fico proclaimed: 'Our enemy is Zelensky. Zelensky caused the problems we have. I don't like him because he harms Slovakia.' Last Tuesday the prime minister, citing a report by the Slovak Information Service (SIS) intelligence agency, claimed that the country's political opposition was preparing a coup in the country – akin to the one that took place in Kiev back in 2014. He also alleged that 'there is a group of experts on the territory of the Slovak Republic that had actively operated in Georgia and during the Maidan in Ukraine.' Several days later, Fico stated that Bratislava would expel these 'foreign instructors.'
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Slovak PM Fico calls Zelenskyy enemy of Slovakia
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy an "enemy" of Slovakia during an ongoing discussion about the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine. Source: European Pravda, citing Dennik N, a Slovak media outlet Details: Fico made these comments at a session of the Slovak Parliament's Economic Committee, where he addressed Zelenskyy's recent remarks about the potential transit of gas from Azerbaijan to European countries. Fico claimed that Zelenskyy has no choice but to talk about "some gas from Azerbaijan" and is "blowing bubbles, thinking these bubbles will free him from making tough decisions". Quote from Fico: "Our enemy is Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy caused the problems we are facing. I don't like him because he is harming Slovakia." More details: Fico reiterated Bratislava's stance that the "most realistic" option remains the restoration of Russian gas transit. He proposed that Slovakia could buy gas at the Russo-Ukrainian border, which would then be transported as Slovak gas through Ukrainian territory. Background: Fico's comments are the latest in his increasingly harsh rhetoric against Ukraine following Ukraine's decision to halt the transit of Russian gas at the start of 2025. The Slovak prime minister has also expressed anger over Zelenskyy's support for mass anti-government protests in Slovakia earlier this month. Support UP or become our patron!
