Emma Raducanu reveals early influence of new coach and ‘big goal’ for 2024

Emma Raducanu reveals coach Nick Cavaday has already made some tweaks and changes to her game.

After splitting with five coaches in two years, Raducanu made an interesting choice, hiring her childhood coach Cavaday for the 2024 season. While Cavaday is not a big-time coaching name on the Tour, he is someone very familiar with Raducanu and her game.

After exiting the Australian Open in the second round, Raducanu returned to London, where she took two days off before hitting the practice court again. In the next two weeks, Raducanu put in the hard work on the practice court as she and coach Cavaday worked on improving but also adding some new things to her game.

This past week at the Abu Dhabi Open, Raducanu returned to action and beat Marie Bouzkova 6-4 6-1 before losing to Ons Jabeur in her following match.

“I made some tweaks after Australia, right before Abu Dhabi,” Raducanu said ahead of her opening match at this week’s WTA 1000 event in Doha

“See them in the first round match was really positive. We worked really hard and to see it all come through, I was really encouraged by that. I’m slowly getting there.

“You learn something and then unlearn it. Over time, you learn more.”

Raducanu: Staying healthy is a big goal of mine

After having surgeries on both wrists and her right ankle in May, Raducanu admits one of her biggest goals for this season is to stay injury-free. Also, former world No. 10 Raducanu hopes to be more consistent than it was the case in previous seasons.

“Staying healthy is the big goal for this year. Injury-wise, sickness-wise. Also, another goal is just consistency,” Raducanu said.

On Saturday, it was revealed that Raducanu received a main draw wildcard into Doha.

In her Doha opener, Raducanu will be battling Anhelina Kalinina, who won their first and lone meeting in 2022 Madrid. However, that match was played on clay, which is Raducanu’s weakest surface.

Kalinina is just 1-4 in early 2024 and Raducanu will certainly like her chances against the Ukrainian.

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