Raducanu: I hope Francisco Roig can help me defeat top players.

Former US Open champion Raducanu recently announced her collaboration with Nadal's former coach, Francisco Roig, which will last at least until the end of this season. In an interview with the UK's Guardian, Raducanu spoke about this partnership for the first time. "He made a very good first impression on me. We trained together for a few days after Wimbledon, and I was very satisfied with the training results. I'm so excited to have him join the team; his experience is extensive, and I look forward to continuing our collaboration."

Raducanu

Roig was a former professional player, reaching a career-high singles ranking of No. 60 in 1992, but he is best known for being a long-time member of Nadal's coaching team. In 2022, Roig ended his 18-year collaboration with Nadal and later coached Berrettini; during this year's Wimbledon, he also briefly guided Zheng Qinwen.

Although frequently changing coaches has been a notable topic in Raducanu's career, this new appointment coincides with a different phase in her professional development. Over the past few months, Raducanu's performance has been stable and impressive: she has shown significantly more confidence on the court and has maintained a much more positive state off the court. This British player has been temporarily working with Mark Petchy since March, but Petchy, who also serves as a commentator, cannot fully commit to her daily training needs. However, the two have remained in close contact.

After reaching the third round at Wimbledon this year, Raducanu had a brief trial collaboration with Roig before deciding to officially team up and signing a contract until the end of the year. Raducanu hopes Roig can help her take the next step: "I feel there is still a lot of room for improvement in many of my shots, especially in terms of shot quality. I'm good at adapting and competing fiercely, and I can play crucial points well, but the overall quality of my matches needs to improve. When facing truly top players, I can't rely on running and strong defense to wait for my opponents to make mistakes, which is precisely where I need to improve. I hope he can assist me in this area."

This Tuesday, Raducanu and Roig kicked off their first full day of training together—practicing in the morning with Slovak player Schramkova and then training alone with Roig in the evening. On Wednesday, Raducanu pushed back her media interview by an hour due to training, and after the day’s training, she added an extra session.

The nature of professional tennis requires players and team members to spend long periods together during the tour, so another challenge for Raducanu and Roig is to establish a good personal relationship. At the Cincinnati event, seeded players are provided with vehicles to travel to and from the venue, which became an opportunity for them to break the ice. "Actually, I drove myself from the airport," Raducanu said. "I didn't know there would be a car, and after getting off the plane, they told me, 'You have a car,' and it turned out to be a huge Cadillac Escalade. I thought to myself, 'This is like a bus.' Obviously, in the UK, we are used to driving smaller cars on smaller roads, so I was a bit nervous at first. Plus, here it’s right-hand drive and left-side traffic (opposite to the UK). But fortunately, I made it to the hotel smoothly."

Since then, the driving task has been handed over to Roig. Like her initial impression of Roig's coaching abilities, Raducanu also appreciates his driving skills: "So far, it's been great; we've faced all sorts of situations—nighttime, rainy days, sunny days... no issues at all."

Currently, Raducanu is ranked No. 33 in the world and No. 26 for champions. If she performs well at the Cincinnati event, she still has a chance to become a seeded player at the US Open. As the tournament's No. 30 seed in women's singles, Raducanu has a first-round bye and will play her first match on Saturday against Serbian player Danilovic.

(Text and editing by Dato, images by Visual China)