'He can say what he thinks': Emma Raducanu addresses previous coach's criticisms

Emma Raducanu has dismissed the criticisms of her previous coach Dmitry Tursunov, who claimed in an interview last October that she needed to listen to “one voice and just try that for a bit”.

Raducanu – who was due to face Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch on Monday at the Australian Open – has regularly reshuffled her backroom team since her emergence in the summer of 2021. Her latest coach, 30-year-old Sebastian Sachs, is the fifth man to hold the post in that time.

But this weekend, Raducanu said that she was finally feeling more settled after finding a group of coaches and experts whom she trusts.

“I think that the way I have been brought up, I have always had quite a lot of people around me,” Raducanu told the BBC, when Tursunov’s comments were put to her. “And it’s more just been me picking and choosing what I want to take and what I want to leave. I don’t really think [it’s] anything out of the ordinary. He [Tursunov] can say what he thinks.”

Asked whether she thought it important to consult a wide variety of sources, Raducanu added “I think a part of it is that I didn’t have that core, small team. I didn’t have that solid set-up and the team that I really fully trusted. So for me this year, now I feel like I have definitely got that, so I don’t probably need to consult as wide any more.”

Raducanu is accompanied in Melbourne by Sachs, her physio Will Herbert and her agent Chris Helliar. Her fitness trainer Jez Green is also here, although he also looks after Austria’s former US Open champion Dominic Thiem, so is not a constant presence at courtside.

Tursunov, meanwhile, has moved on to work with Swiss No1 Belinda Bencic, after causing a stir with his comments to the Tennis Majors website in October. “We didn’t agree on the terms [with the Raducanu camp],” he said then, “and there were some red flags that just couldn’t be ignored.”

In the same interview, Tursunov also praised Raducanu for being “a hard worker [who] doesn’t think or act like she’s a superstar. She is hungry to improve and is obsessed with tennis.”

Raducanu has radiated determination this week in the face of an ankle injury sustained in Auckland ten days ago. She has spent 90 minutes on the court each day, even though her movement was painfully restricted at the start of the week.

Korpatsch on Raducanu challenge

Now, though, she clearly feels comfortable enough to believe she can oust Korpatsch – a 27-year-old who has yet to win a singles match at a slam.

Despite standing next to each other on the rankings chart – Korpatsch at No74 and Raducanu at No75 – these two women could hardly be more different on the “public profile” front.

While Raducanu is the golden girl who exists in a gilded cage, her every move pored over by fans and media, Korpatsch is a late developer from Hamburg. In her late teens and early 20s, she clawed her way up the ladder through an apparently endless series of US$10,000 and $25,000 events in Germany.

“I didn’t play juniors as a kid,” Korpatsch told Telegraph Sport. “We just didn't know a lot when I was younger and we did everything alone. My father's been my coach since I was five. At the beginning we didn't have so much money, so we just travelled with car or camper-van because it was cheaper. We would cook in the camper and then if it rained we could relax there instead of in the crowded player lounge.”

One of the smaller players on the tour at 5ft 6in, Korpatsch relies more on guile than power. Her favoured surface is clay, where she has won all 12 of her second-tier titles. But even on the red dust of Stuttgart, she could not get past Raducanu last season, losing their first-round match in three sets.

“She's a very, very good player,” said Korpatsch of Raducanu. “She's not making so many mistakes, and she’s bringing many balls back. When I played Stuttgart against her, she was playing a bit higher with spin, but I think on hard-court, she's playing a bit different. I will just fight and try to win as many points as possible.”