Inside Emma Raducanu’s inner circle: Who is Wimbledon star’s mum, coach and ‘rock’?
Emma Raducanu is supported by a huge team at Wimbledon, who will all be hoping they can roar her to victory at SW19.
Emma Raducanu looks to be back to her free-flowing, Grand Slam-winning best after three years of injuries and changes of coach. The Canadian-born Brit advanced seamlessly into the third round with a ruthless 6-1, 6-2 victory over Elise Mertens.
She will need to dig deep in the third round as she faces Maria Sakkari, the World No.9 and the player she beat in the 2021 US Open semi-finals in the year she stunned the world to win the Grand Slam at the age of 18 years old. Raducanu will need all the help and support she can get if she is to overcome the No.9 seed.
As usual, Raducanu is being supported by her family, friends and tennis team. Daily Express Sport takes a look at the inner circle who will be supporting her. Raducanu’s parents were not able to travel to the States to watch her extraordinary US Open triumph, but they have been seen at Wimbledon. Her mother Renee is Chinese and her father Ian is Romanian. Raducanu moved to the UK when she was only two years old and was born in Ontario, Canada.
Her parents are both finance industry professionals by trade and have been residing in the Greater London area of Bromley for 20 years. In a previous interview with Vogue, Raducanu said: “My mum comes from a Chinese background, they have very good self-belief. It’s not necessarily about telling everyone how good you are, but it’s about believing it within yourself. I really respect that about the culture.”
Her father is described as a softly-spoken, but no-nonsense individual who reportedly has a history of firing coaches over the course of her career. It’s also believed he once wanted her to have a coach for every kind of shot in the same way a golfer does. In a previous interview with the Telegraph, ex-British No.1 Mark Petchey said: “As a coach, he challenges you. His view is the coach does not necessarily know everything. I thought he had a good handle on what the particular needs of his daughter were.”
In another world, Benjamin Heynold could have been the one Raducanu was cheering on in Grand Slams. The 21-year-old was a tennis protege himself but was not quite able to crack the circuit. Instead, he has been supporting Raducanu through every high and low. Insiders have described her long-term best friend as a ‘rock’ in her life who has always been by her side. Soon after her US Open triumph, Heynold uploaded a photo of the pair standing beneath a gigantic Nike billboard in New York when they were both teenagers, alongside the caption: “History”.
They have known each other since the age of six and even went on to represent Team GB together. During a period where there has been lots of change in her life, he has been one of the main constants.
Coach
Raducanu has had five different coaches since she won the US Open in 2021. At the start of the year, she turned to someone she has known since the age of 10, childhood mentor Nick Cavaday. After working with Sebastian Sachs, Nigel Sears, Andrew Richardson, Torben Beltz and Dmitry Tursurnov, she linked up with Cavaday, who was the head coach of the LTA’s Loughborough Academy.
When she announced she would be working with him, she said: “I’ve known Nick since I was 10 years old and he was helping me out the last week at the NTC [National Tennis Centre]. Before that the LTA helped me a ton.” He has worked with British players such as Aljaz Bedene and Dom Inglot before he started working in the academy. She has been working with him since the start of the year.
Iain Bates is one of the few members of Raducanu’s coaching team who directly worked with her during her US Open triumph. Bates is Britain’s head of women’s tennis, who was in New York for that spell-bounding triumph. In an interview with the i shortly after she lifted the Grand Slam, he said: “It’s been a complete whirlwind really. I don’t think anybody realistically would have expected her to win it.
“When she beat Bencic in the quarter-final at that point you think ‘OK this is getting really serious now’ and somebody’s going to have to play very, very well to beat her and nobody was able to.” Bates has previously worked closely with Judy Murray and was also part of Raducanu’s celebrations after her triumph
