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Emma Raducanu’s parents: How ‘out there’ father and ‘no-nonsense’ mother put needs of their daughter first

Emma Raducanu with her father, Ian

Emma Raducanu with her father, Ian

When Emma Raducanu was coming up through the ranks of British juniors, everyone could see that she had an X-factor. She did, after all, win an ITF under-18 event at the age of 13, which remains a record.

But there were a couple of question marks against her name. One was that she picked up quite a few injuries, and thus didn’t play as much as her contemporaries. Another was her father, Ian. As one coach put it, “People just thought he was a bit out there.”

Like Serena Williams’ father Richard 30 years ago, Ian Raducanu had an unusual take on things. He wasn’t interested in orthodoxy. He was said to want Emma to have a different coach for each shot, just as a golfer might have a dedicated putting coach.

This story quickly went around the grapevine of British tennis, causing much scoffing. And yet all the coaches I spoke to said that they had never heard Ian say it himself. It gives an idea of the way he was perceived – as something of a zany scientist behind the scenes.

Sometimes, though, it takes a different perspective to create a different outcome. Richard Williams delivered everything that he had promised, even if his hyperbolic predictions had caused much scepticism and head-shaking in the early days. Now Raducanu has rewritten tennis history by becoming the first qualifier to reach a major final.

“His outlook on tennis is wide-ranging,” said Mark Petchey – the former British No 1 who spent five months working with Raducanu last year – of her father. “He is happy to think outside the box. As a coach, he challenges you – his view is the coach does not necessarily know everything. I thought he had a good handle on what the particular needs of his daughter were.”

Ian Raducanu watching Emma at Wimbledon - TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTDIan Raducanu watching Emma at Wimbledon - TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD

Ian Raducanu watching Emma at Wimbledon – TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD

Swapping coaches is often seen as a cop-out, a refusal to take responsibility for your own failings. In many cases, when a player sacks a coach they are off-loading the blame.

But Raducanu has worked with heaps of people all along, and the intention has been a kind of crowd-sourcing. She has taken ideas from each one, without becoming lost in a fog of competing advice.

“Most people who are getting established in the game look at an experienced coach and assume that they must be an expert,” said one British tennis insider. “With the Raducanus, it’s the other way around. You have to actually impress them, even if you have a big reputation, because they start from the principle that most people don’t actually know what they’re talking about.

“Then they size you up, work out what you’re good at, suck out all the information they can get from you, and move on. It’s a brilliant method, although it’s quite bruising to the egos of people who think they have an all-round mastery of tennis coaching. Because these people are often being asked for some specific information, like, ‘How I can get more width on my backhand return?’ or whatever it is. And then it’s, ‘Okay, I’ve got it, thank you very much. Bye’.”

Ian Raducanu is described as softly-spoken and approachable – someone who is interested in people and subtly interrogates them as he is chatting away. Whereas his wife, Renee, is the no-nonsense one. She is also an extremely nervous spectator. While neither parent has been present at the US Open, partly because of visa issues, they came to Wimbledon and sat in the crowd rather than their daughter’s player box in order to be out of the public eye.

The parents of Emma - Renee (middle left) and Ian (top right) at Wimbledon - ANDY HOOPERThe parents of Emma - Renee (middle left) and Ian (top right) at Wimbledon - ANDY HOOPER

The parents of Emma – Renee (middle left) and Ian (top right) at Wimbledon – ANDY HOOPER

At the weekend, while Emma was preparing for her quarter-final against Olympic champion Belinda Bencic, Renee visited Sundridge Park in Bromley to receive the “Kent Player of the Year” award on Emma’s behalf, and is reported to have given a very gracious speech.

Like so many outstanding tennis players around the world – particularly in the Anglosphere – Emma is a second-generation immigrant. She was born in Toronto, but has lived in England since the age of two, attending the outstanding Newstead School in Bromley, south-east London. Her multi-cultural background shines through in her mastery of Mandarin, which she uses to communicate with Chinese players like Zhang Shuai – her second-round US Open opponent – in the locker-room. She also makes regular visits back to Bucharest to see her grandmother, Mamiya, whose cooking she raves about.

“They have been pushy to an extent,” said Raducanu, who is an only child, of her parents. “Not just in tennis but in everything. I think that I’ve developed that mentality since a young age.”

She has clearly absorbed the analytical mindset of her parents, who both work in finance, as well as their perfectionism. According to one coach, “the unique thing about Emma is that you teach her something, she gets it, and then it’s there. With most players – even top-10 players – you drag them up to a standard on a particular skill, and then when you start the next session it has slipped back again. Her ability to learn and retain new information is uncanny, and it’s not going to stop here.”

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