Former coach of
Emma Raducanu, Andrew Richardson, who guided her to a US Open win reveals what happened when they shockingly split after the huge success.
Many were stunned when Raducanu let go of her coach Andrew Richardson who worked with her at the time she won the US Open. Nobody could understand why she made the decision but Raducanu wanted a more experienced coach on the WTA Tour to help her get acclimated to the professional life.
She's yet to find that level again as her career has been in freefall mostly due to poor injury luck and generally lacklustre play. Richardson now shed light on how the split happened:
The fact of the matter is that a I had a nine-week trial contract that both Emma and I thought was a good idea to see how we would get on, and it ran through to the end of the US Open, stopping immediately afterwards. There was a period of time after that
when I was keen to re-negotiate the contract. I wanted to carry on, and I
had a plan that I wanted to put in place for Emma. This thing about ‘I
wanted to go off and coach my son’ is not true, but it seems to come up
all the time."
He continued:
"After probably ten days to two weeks
(following the Open) I didn’t have a contract. We were in the process of
re-negotiating and then I got a brief call from her agent telling me
they were going to go in a different direction, and that was the end of
it. Since what happened with
Emma I’ve had offers to go back on the tour, both WTA and ATP. The
timing wasn’t right, but going back on the tour is definitely something I
want to do in the future."