"I've never seen a player improve that fast in one week": Vladimir Platenik opens up about two-week coaching stint with Emma Raducanu

Emma Raducanu’s short-term coach, Vladimir Platenik, has opened up about working with Britain’s young tennis star. The 21-year-old was once regarded as the next big thing after winning the US Open at the age of just 18 back in 2021.

Since then, however, things have remained very difficult for the youngster, largely because of fitness concerns. Recently, she featured in the WTA 1000 event in Indian Wells, where she was knocked out after losing in the first round. Raducanu is currently taking part at the Miami Open, where she booked her spot in the round of 64 after beating Japan’s Sayaka Ishii in straight sets with a score of 6-2, 6-1.

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Platenik has recently worked with the former world number 10 for about two weeks. The 49-year-old has recently spoken to English media outlet The Times where he highlighted how it was to work with the one-time Grand Slam winner. Platenik stated that he identified a major flaw in Raducanu’s technique and also highlighted that the one-time Grand Slam winner improved drastically within a short period of time.

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“I was watching Emma working with the hitting partner from England [Tom Welsh] and I was a little bit surprised with what they were doing,” said Platenik. “Actually the match [at Indian Wells] went the way that I was thinking because the structure of her practices were not too good. After the match I told her my opinion on what I would do and she asked about it. The communication was pretty good. For me there were very little live balls on the move. It was too much hand-feeds and drilling.

"When you saw the match in Indian Wells, she was not able to stay in the rallies. That is the problem sometimes, that the players practise so little live balls and different situations. And she had very poor footwork. I follow the biomechanical and physical principles. I’m trying to pay attention to a lot of details and I didn’t see this in Emma’s game. I've never seen a player improve that fast in one week, even though obviously a lot of things were new for her. We were discussing and watching a lot of videos. After a couple of days she was really positive. She said, ‘I’m improving and it’s getting better.’ She also had very good sparring [hitting] sessions. I was thinking, ‘OK, she gets it, she understands it.’ It was a very short period and she was really getting it very fast, which proves that she’s super talented.”

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