Emma Raducanu opens up on relationship with Nick Cavaday after firing five past coaches

Emma Raducanu has described her coach Nick Cavaday as “a very good person” and has insisted she is in “the best environment” after linking up with her childhood mentor at the start of the year. The 21-year-old has fired five previous coaches since competing at Wimbledon for the first time in 2021. Raducanu worked with Cavaday when she was a young teenager and reunited with him at Roehampton’s National Tennis Centre at the end of last year.

She then formally appointed him as her coach ahead of the Australian Open in January. Cavaday guided Raducanu to the fourth round of Wimbledon in July, her best run at a Grand Slam since her US Open title success as an 18-year-old in 2021. And following her victory over Peyton Stearns at the Korea Open on Tuesday, Raducanu explained: “The relationship with the coach is very good. It’s really good to be together. Nick is a competent coach but, more importantly, he is a very good person.

“I think being with a friend I’ve known for a long time in a familiar environment is the best environment for me right now, and I value the time with him.” Raducanu began her career under the tutelage of Nigel Sears, who guided the star to the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2021 in her first Grand Slam. He soon made way for Andrew Richardson, with the 50-year-old finding the magic formula to inspire Raducanu to US Open success as she became the first qualifier in history to win a major tournament. But he soon found himself out of a job as Torben Beltz joined forces with Raducanu weeks later, with the German lasting five months.

In July 2022, former top-20 ATP player Dmitry Tursunov began overseeing Raducanu on a trial basis but chose to walk away three months later after insisting there were “red flags that just couldn’t be ignored”. Sebastian Sachs then coached Raducanu between December 2022 and June 2023, a period that saw the player undergo operations on both her wrists and an ankle as she was forced to miss the majority of the 2023 season.

Raducanu was quizzed about her turnover of coaches when she appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in October 2023. And the star explained: “I ask my coaches a lot of questions. On certain occasions they haven’t been able to keep up with the questions I’ve asked and maybe that’s why it ended.

“It’s something I’ve always done. I keep provoking and asking questions to coaches and challenging their thinking as well. I’m not someone that you can just tell me what do and I’ll do it – I need to understand why and then I’ll do it.”