{"id":65265,"date":"2025-08-07T14:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T14:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/65265\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T14:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T14:22:07","slug":"emma-raducanu-i-hope-francisco-roig-can-help-me-beat-the-top-players-emma-raducanu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/65265\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu: \u2018I hope Francisco Roig can help me beat the top players\u2019 | Emma Raducanu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Raducanu believes her new coaching partnership<\/a> with Francisco Roig can help to take her game to the next level as she tries to continue her recent rise up the rankings. \u201cFirst impressions are it\u2019s going really well,\u201d Raducanu said, speaking for the first time about the move in an interview with the Guardian. \u201cWe did a few days after Wimbledon together and I was really happy with how it went. I\u2019m just so excited to have him on board, so much experience. I\u2019m really looking forward to continuing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With her hiring of Roig, Raducanu has indeed added a wealth of experience to her team. A former player with a career-high singles ranking of No 60 in 1992, Roig came to prominence as a longtime member of Rafael Nadal\u2019s coaching team, working alongside Toni Nadal, Rafael\u2019s uncle and coach, as the Spaniard built one of the greatest careers in the history of professional tennis. Roig himself decided to end his 18-year partnership with Nadal in 2022 and he later briefly coached the injury-prone Italian Matteo Berrettini.<\/p>\n

Although Raducanu\u2019s numerous coaching changes<\/a> have been a big narrative in her career, this new appointment comes at a different point in her development.<\/p>\n

Raducanu has put together a consistent run of quality tennis over the past few months; she is clearly playing with confidence on the court and is in a far more positive place away from the court. The Briton had been working on an ad hoc basis with Mark Petchey since March but Petchey, who is also a broadcaster, could not fully commit to work with her on a day-to-day basis. The pair remain in close contact.<\/p>\n

Now at No 33 in the WTA rankings and 26 in the WTA race, a good showing in Cincinnati would lead to her being seeded at a grand slam tournament for the first time since her US Open points fell off. Raducanu, seeded 30th here, has received a first-round bye and faces a qualifier or lucky loser in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

After a brief trial period following her run to the third round at Wimbledon<\/a> this year, Raducanu opted to work with Roig and they have agreed a contract until the end of the year. She is hopeful that he can help her to take another step forward: \u201cI think I can definitely improve on a lot of my shots, just the quality of them,\u201d Raducanu said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve been good at being creative, scrapping, playing the big points well, but I think the overall quality of my game needs to be better. And I see that when I play the really top players where I can\u2019t run and scrap, wait on them to miss. I think that\u2019s where I need to improve. And yeah, I\u2019m hoping he can help me with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Francisco Roig (left) coached Rafael Nadal for 18 years before ending the partnership in 2022. Photograph: Scott Taetsch\/USA Today Sports<\/p>\n

Raducanu and Roig began their partnership with a long day of training on Tuesday, following up her morning sparring session with Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia with an evening training session on a remote court with only Roig.<\/p>\n

There was plenty of laughter alongside their high-intensity work. Raducanu then pushed back her media duties by an hour on Wednesday to spend extra time on the practice court and she finished her day with another session.<\/p>\n

Such is the nature of professional tennis, where players and their team members spend a significant period of time together while travelling on the tour, another challenge for Raducanu and Roig will be to connect on a personal level. The vast Ohio roads may prove to be an icebreaker between them. At Cincinnati, the seeded players are given cars to drive to and from the tournament venue. \u201cI actually drove from the airport,\u201d the 22-year-old said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know I had a car, so I landed, and they were like: \u2018Oh, you have a car,\u2019 and it\u2019s this massive Cadillac Escalade. So I\u2019m like: \u2018This is like a bus\u2019. Obviously in England, we\u2019re used to driving small cars, small roads, so I was a bit tight. Wrong side of the road as well. But it\u2019s OK. I managed to get to the hotel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, Raducanu has handed over driving responsibilities to Roig. As with his coaching capabilities, her first impressions of his driving skills are positive: \u201cSo far so good,\u201d she said, smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been tested too, in the dark, in the rain, in the sun. It\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu believes her new coaching partnership with Francisco Roig can help to take her game to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-65265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}