Coach Vladimir Platenik says his very brief partnership with Emma Raducanu ended because the Briton “was feeling stressed and under a lot of pressure”.
Platenik told BBC Sport he was “absolutely surprised” but “not angry” when the 22-year-old called off the arrangement after only two weeks.
The conversation took place after 10 days of training and on the eve of the British number two’s first-round match at the Miami Open on Wednesday.
“I totally understand Emma, she’s not in an easy position. The world is looking at her after the US Open [which she won in 2021] and everybody is expecting – including herself – what she is going to do next,” Platenik said.
“So for me it’s absolutely understandable that she’s under a lot of pressure. She told me she was feeling stressed.
“There are no hard feelings from my side. She finished the relationship in a fair way, maybe too quickly, but this is tennis, this is sport. We need to respect that.
“She was not feeling OK, and that was her decision. I didn’t want to go into deeper communication about that. I think the player needs to feel good, and the player needs to make a decision. Sometimes you make a good decision, and sometimes bad.”
Platenik said Raducanu’s father Ian, with whom he exchanges messages from time to time, asked him at the end of last month whether he could recommend a coach.
His daughter had been without a permanent coach since Nick Cavaday stood down for health reasons in January.
Platenik explained that he initially suggested someone else’s name, but was soon back in touch when his partnership with New Zealander Lulu Sun came to an unanticipated end.
The 49-year-old Slovak promptly boarded a flight to Indian Wells and arrived on site a day before Raducanu’s defeat by Moyuka Uchijima of Japan, and said he was “surprised by the way Emma was working.”
“She was not really able to stay in the rallies, there were a lot of problems to play on the move with the different speed, different spin and different angle,” he said.
“We had a good discussion, the communication was good from her side. I was very happy because I really must say that I never had a player improving that fast – in eight, nine days.
“She was getting a lot of things very fast. And I think it also showed in the first round [victory over Sayaka Ishii in Miami]. She was playing very correct, technically and tactically – exactly what we were practising, so I’m happy and I hope that she could take something out of my help.”
