As her newest coach lasts simply 14 DAYS, how British tennis star Emma Raducanu has burnt via SEVEN in lower than 4 years

Within the tennis world, the latest coaching departure from Emma Raducanu‘s camp has been greeted with little more than a knowing shrug. 

The British star’s reputation for dispensing with the help precedes her, and Vladimir Platenik, a 49-year-old Slovakian who has previously worked with former top-10 players Dominika Cibulkova and Daria Kastakina, walked into his new job a fortnight ago with his eyes wide open.

That much became apparent when, with his feet barely under the table, he gave an ill-advised interview to a daily newspaper in his native Bratislava, revealing that he had twice previously considered the possibility of working with Raducanu only to conclude it would be ‘career suicide’.

Platenik’s comments raised eyebrows in many quarters, not least because they laid bare the extent of the influential role played by Raducanu’s father Ian in appointing her coaches.    

‘I wrote to Ian to ask if they had anyone, as I knew their interest in me was more long-term,’ said Platenik, explaining how he came to take up the reins from previous incumbent Nick Cavaday. ‘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 [shot] development. There are many coaches on the circuit who are considered top-notch, but who have no development experience. 

‘Of course, I perceive that they change coaches often. However, I want to help Emma, and if both parties recognise that I am successful, I believe that the relationship will last longer.’

Instead, Platenik exited the revolving door to the Raducanu camp in record time, a trial that was originally planned to run all the way through to this summer’s French Open grinding to a halt after just 14 days. If there is solace to be had for the Slovak, it lies in the fact that he is far from alone on the mounting scrapheap of coaching talent the former US Open champion has left in her wake.

Nigel Sears (April to July 2021) 

Andy Murray’s father-in-law Nigel Sears was in Raducanu’s corner as she made her first big strides on the world stage at Wimbledon in 2021. 

Having previously worked with the likes of Ana Ivanovic, Anett Kontaveit and Amanda Coetzer, all former top-three players, the highly experienced British coach was never likely to be fazed by Raducanu’s extraordinary breakout run to the last 16. 

Barely out of the exam hall where she had sat her A-levels only two months earlier, the 18-year-old’s victims in SW19 included Marketa Vondrousova, a future Wimbledon champion, and the gifted if unpredictable Romanian Sorana Cirstea. 

‘She has the necessary qualities and she’s hungry enough and eager to learn,’ Sears said of Raducanu after the second of those wins. ‘She’s ambitious and she wants to do it and I think that, given the right opportunities and more match experience, she’ll make good progress.

‘It’s really up to her how far she goes. Quite frankly, I think the sky’s the limit.’

In fact, round four was the limit: Raducanu retired with breathing difficulties while trailing Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, 3-0 and, within a fortnight, Sears was gone.

Andrew Richardson (July to September 2021)

As a former head coach at Bromley Tennis Centre, where he oversaw the formative stages of Raducanu’s development, Andrew Richardson was an obvious candidate to fill the role vacated by Sears. 

A former player himself, the 6ft 7in Richardson reached a career-high ranking of 133 in the world. Best remembered for making the third round of Wimbledon as a wild card in 1997, he would scale considerably greater heights as Raducanu’s coach, presiding over her fairytale run from US Open qualifier to US Open champion. 

Given that success – not to mention his personal familiarity with Raducanu and her game – it was naturally assumed that Richardson’s nine-week trial contract would become a permanent one. Two weeks later, though, he received a phone call from Raducanu’s agent informing him he was sacked.

‘I was keen to re-negotiate the contract,’ Richardson later revealed. ‘I wanted to carry on, and I had a plan that I wanted to put in place for Emma.’

Torben Beltz (November 2021 to April 2022)

Another highly experienced campaigner, German coach Torben Beltz guided his countrywoman Angelique Kerber, a former world No 1, to the Australian and US Open titles. 

Raducanu hailed Beltz’s pedigree and achievements on his appointment, claiming it was ‘a great privilege to be working with such an experienced coach’. 

‘He can help guide me through, which I feel really confident about, and also he’s a really positive, cheerful guy,’ she said.

He was probably a little less cheerful on being ushered through the door five months later, having seen Raducanu win just five of her 12 matches under his stewardship. 

The partnership had begun inauspiciously when Raducanu contracted Covid ahead of a planned pre-season training block, and she was frequently injured in the months that followed. 

Yet Raducanu had spoken positively of their work together, and the departure of a third coach in less than a year caught many by surprise, particularly since it followed an encouraging run to the quarter-finals of the Stuttgart Open, her first clay-court event as a professional.

Dmitry Tursunov (July to October 2022)

As Beltz departed to coach Kontaveit, another of the Estonian’s former coaches was hired in the shape of Dmitry Tursunov, the former Russian player who won seven ATP titles and reached a career high of 20 in the rankings.

The auspices were encouraging. After joining forces with Kontaveit before the previous year’s US Open, Tursunov guided her to a first title in four years, sparking a remarkable run of success as Kontaveit rose from 30 in the world to No 2, winning five titles and qualifying for the season-ending WTA Finals for the first time along the way. 

Sadly, the Russian could not replicate that success with Raducanu, who had sought input from a number of coaches following Beltz’s departure, including Iain Bates, the LTA’s head of women’s tennis, Louis Cayer, the British governing body’s senior performance adviser, and childhood mentor Jane O’Donoghue. 

Raducanu’s defence of the US Open title ended in round one at the hands of Alizé Cornet of France, and by October Tursunov was gone. Uniquely, though, he left on his own terms, later alluding obliquely to ‘red flags that just couldn’t be ignored’.

Sebastian Sachs (December 2022 to June 2023) 

With Tursunov having departed talking of the need for Raducanu ‘to have one voice and just try that for a bit’, Sebastian Sachs, a 30-year-old German who had previously worked with Victoria Azarenka and Belinda Bencic, was recruited on a trial basis.

While his own playing career did not extend beyond Futures level, Sachs arrived with a quietly impressive body of coaching work behind him, most notably in guiding Bencic to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. 

Raducanu talked up his calming influence initially but, despite a fine run to the last 16 in Indian Wells, a split became inevitable once she underwent surgery on both hands and an ankle in a bid to overcome her persistent injury struggles.

‘I have really enjoyed Seb’s coaching and working with him, it’s unfortunate that circumstances made it unfeasible for both of us to continue right now and we have decided to part ways,’ she wrote on X,

Nick Cavaday (January 2024 to January 2025)

If Richardson has a competitor as the most successful coach to have worked with Raducanu, it is 38-year-old Nick Cavaday, another of her childhood mentors. 

For 14 months, it appeared the British No 2 had finally identified a figure with whom she could forge a fruitful long-term partnership. With Raducanu exuding enthusiasm about the partnership, and her dreadful luck with injuries finally beginning to turn, she began to climb the rankings once more, compiling a solid sequence of results to re-enter the top 100.

That run of success included quarter-finals across three different surfaces in Stuttgart, Eastbourne, Washington and Korea, a Nottingham Open semi-final, and another last-16 appearance at Wimbledon.

But undisclosed health issues forced Cavaday to end the partnership in January.

‘I am very happy to have been able to work with Emma over the last 14 months,’ said Cavaday. ‘At this moment in time, it’s important for me to spend some more time at home and prioritise getting back to full health, which is hard to do with the extensive calendar. 

‘I am glad Emma is back to being established on tour now with a ranking inside the top 60, and I look forward to seeing what she does from here.’

Vladimir Platenik (March 6 to March 19 2025) 

As we now know, what Raducanu did next was to enlist and then rapidly dispense with the services of Platenik, who was living on borrowed time from the moment he gave that ill-fated interview. 

Not for the first time, the parting of the ways was sudden, with Platenik failing to appear in Raducanu’s box for her 6-2, 6-1 victory over Sayaka Ishii, the world No 188, at the Miami Open. The pair had earlier been seen in intense conversation.

‘Emma and Vlado have parted ways,’ read a statement from Raducanu’s management team. ‘Emma has utmost respect for Vlado and the work they started, but it wasn’t quite heading in the right direction. 

‘Emma is now focused on doing as well as she can here in Miami after her a solid start today and will continue looking for the right coach.’

It was ever thus.