Emma Raducanu’s start to 2026 has been far from ideal, further exacerbated by her second-round exit from the Australian Open.
When the draw was made, many feared for the Brit, as a third-round meeting with Aryna Sabalenka loomed.
The Belarusian was a main character throughout Emma Raducanu’s 2025 season, but was also involved in some of her most promising and hard-fought matches too.
However, whilst the world number one held up her end of the bargain, the 22-year-old was unable to follow suit, shockingly losing to Anastasia Potapova in straight sets.
This has provoked an inquest into not only Raducanu’s pre-season, but the changes she has implemented to her game of late that thwarted her Australian Open campaign.
Francisco Roig’s coaching of Emma Raducanu questioned
Naturally, the blame for those tweaks will fall on Francisco Roig, who will have been encouraging these transformations.
However, speaking on The Tennis Podcast, Catherine Whitaker suggested that the Spaniard might not have the full backing of his player, using one United Cup flashpoint to underpin her argument.
Emma Raducanu won her first Grand Slam too soon – Prove me wrong!
She claimed: “There was just that one moment in the match that Raducanu played against Maria Sakkari, where Roig had been telling her, there was the Roig-Henman double act, wasn’t there, during that match, where they were sort of inputting lots of information.
“Tim was mostly vibe-based. Roig was telling her to put shape on the ball. And there was one point at the start of the second set, where she seemed to say, I don’t want to hear anything more about putting shape on the ball. Just pipe down and let me do my thing. And she started just swinging and hitting freely, and she played a great set.
“Now she ended up losing that match. She faded physically in the third set, but it made me think, well, that’s not a good sign for whatever you’re working on with your coach, that you’ve played your best tennis when you’ve explicitly ignored what he’s had to tell you.”
Whitaker then explained how this linked to yesterday’s disappointment: “You watch this performance, and you see the Raducanu forehand, which she told us about before the tournament, what she’s been trying to do and not to do with that forehand, and it was a catastrophe today.
“Like, whatever they’ve been trying to do, it’s so patently not the right thing to do, lengthening that swing, making it loopier. Every expert that I’ve spoken to says, in 2026, you don’t lengthen swings. You shorten swings if you possibly can.
“And I mean, she looked like she didn’t have a forehand today. It was disastrous. Like, it’s rare you see such a tangible change in a player as a result of working with a particular coach and for it to be so catastrophic.”
Emma Raducanu and Francisco Roig need to get on the same page
This notion was further emphasised by what was said in the post-match press conference following this defeat.
Raducanu noted the change she wants to make to her game, and seemingly sent warning shots to Roig if he did not help her implement it.
What does Emma Raducanu need to improve in 2026?
She claimed: “I think I want to be playing a different way, and I think the misalignment with how I’m playing right now and how I want to be playing is something that I just want to work on.
“I just want to hit the ball to the corners and hard. I feel like I’m doing all this variety, and it’s not doing what I want it to do.”
