

Emma Raducanu has brought former British No. 1 Mark Petchey onto her coaching team for at least the Madrid Open.
Raducanu, ranked No. 47 after a promising but stop-start 2025, has been without a permanent coach since Nick Cavaday stepped down in January. She then worked with the Slovakian Vladimír Pláteník for a couple of weeks on a trial basis in March, and will now continue with a familiar face in Petchey for the start of the clay-court season.
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“Nothing is formal,” Raducanu told Sky Sports on the eve of the tournament in Spain.
Petchey, 54, coached three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray for 10 months at the start of his career. He had a brief stint with Raducanu in the summer of 2020, to tune some of the technical aspects of her game, and he joined the 22-year-old at last month’s Miami Open in Florida on a locum basis alongside longtime friend and former player and LTA coach Jane O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue is also in Madrid, and the ad hoc arrangement will see Petchey juggling other commitments, including working as an analyst for the Tennis Channel.
Since her breakout summer in 2021, when she reached the fourth round of Wimbledon before winning the U.S. Open as a qualifier, Raducanu has changed coaches frequently. She has had six permanent coaches in that time — Nigel Sears, Andrew Richardson, Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov, Sebastian Sachs and Cavaday — as well as a number of others she has worked with on a temporary basis.
After reaching the last eight in Miami, her best result since winning the U.S. Open four years ago, Raducanu took a few weeks off for a mid-season training block. The Brit plays Suzan Lamens of the Netherlands in the Madrid Open first round April 23, and is planning to play the Italian Open, which starts in two weeks.
‘Surrounding herself with people she knows and trusts is important’
Throughout the last few months without a coach, Raducanu has been clear that she would not be rushing into a decision. She has exacting standards and wanted to wait for the right fit.
Surrounding herself with people she knows and trusts is important to Raducanu, and during her run to the Miami quarterfinals she discussed how she was benefiting from the positive mood in her camp. Raducanu played games of spikeball with Petchey and the rest of the team before going on court, which helped keep her relaxed and loose.
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This feeling of security was particularly important after the ordeal Raducanu had suffered a month earlier in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, when a man exhibiting “fixated behaviour” toward Raducanu was escorted off court after causing her to break down in tears mid-match against Karolina Muchova. The spectator later signed a restraining order.
In Petchey, Raducanu believes she has found someone who has the technical expertise she requires while also understanding which of the more intangible aspects of coaching are most important to her.
Over the last decade or so, Petchey has established himself as a well-respected voice in the sport through his work with the Tennis Channel and other broadcasters and before that, he played an important part in a young Murray’s development. Petchey was Murray’s coach when he won his first ATP Tour title, 19 years ago in San Jose, Texas. Executing tactics and strategies is one of Raducanu’s great strengths, so if Petchey can implement the tactical insights he demonstrates as an analyst, then there’s reason to feel confident about the partnership.
The benefits she has found from working with Petchey have largely come, she says, from the looseness and informality of the arrangement. Whether that will progress into a formal coaching agreement remains to be seen.
(Photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
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