Emma Raducanu Struggles: Crisis of confidence, fitness issues, coach troubles, or all of the above?

Emma Raducanu remains one of the most polarizing names in the world of tennis because so many are curious to see how her career will unfold. From a player whose potential was called into question following an unsavory end to a tremendous Wimbledon run to a Grand Slam champion two months later.

Her career since then has been largely marked by lots of injuries and just inconsistent tennis. At times she did play really well, similar to how she played at the 2021 US Open, but overall it wasn’t that great.

2025 is supposed to be the year when she finally gets back to proper form. She played last year fully without any major injury concerns, so now it’s time to really take over. The start to the year hasn’t been that good, though.

Raducanu has played two events so far. She played at the Australian Open, beating Ekaterina Alexandrova and Amanda Anisimova. She then lost to Iga Swiatek.

Then, she went to Singapore but bowed out in the first round against Cristina Bucsa. There are certainly positives to draw there for Raducanu but also some negatives. First of all, she’s not really playing as confidently as she used to. She played the US Open a couple of years back with the confidence of a player who can’t do anything wrong.

That’s gone now; she doesn’t have that confidence in her game anymore, and it was painfully obvious when she faced Swiatek in Melbourne. There wasn’t an ounce of belief in her that she could win that matchup. That’s not how she’s supposed to play tennis as it detracts from what she can do well.

Emma Raducanu's fitness issues

Day Seven: The Championships - Wimbledon 2024 - Source: Getty

Another reason why unfortunately seems to be attached with Raducanu is physical concerns. The British player has dealt with a ridiculous amount of injuries so far in her early career. Having those issues at 22 isn’t good for her because it’s not generally something that gets better with time.

She underwent triple surgery at one point to address some of those issues but largely avoided too many major injuries outside of that. It’s mostly minor stuff that keeps popping up and preventing her from playing continuously, which would help her address her confidence issues.

You can’t really build confidence if you don’t play, and she’s missing a lot of time. That doesn’t seem to get better because she has dealt with some physical issues even this year, and there is barely any wear and tear on her body.

If she doesn’t figure out how to address those physical concerns, she might get stuck in the perpetual injury hell which won’t allow her to build the type of career she could. The potential is there. You don’t win a Grand Slam for nothing.

Emma Raducanu's coaching issues

2025 Australian Open - Day 1 - Source: Getty

Another topic with Emma Raducanu has always been the coaching situation. She’s only 22 and has been on tour for only a couple of years, but already has worked with dozens of coaches. She let go of the coach who guided her to the US Open win not long after that.

That shocked many on th tour and was received negatively. She then hired a couple of respectable and notable coaches but cycled through them rather quickly. That was criticized because ultimately switching coaching every so often doesn’t achieve anything.

A coach needs time to help a player implement a vision and changing coaches often doesn’t allow that. Raducanu then made a couple of bizarre statements around coaching which confused a lot of people even more.

Plenty of analysts and former players urged her to finally settle on one coach and give it time; however, that doesn’t seem to be happening this year either. After working with Nick Cavaday for a while, she’s not doing that anymore as of three days ago.

The reason for the split was apparently the coach himself and for reasons non-related to Raducanu, but it’s a troubling trend for a player who has had more coaches by now than years on tour.

Overall, Raducanu’s career has been a lot of chaos since her US Open win. She hasn’t come close to realizing her potential. There were lots of injury problems that don’t seem to be going away. There are also unusual choices by the player herself and that just leaves fans with a lot of questions.

The first month of 2025 hasn’t been great for Raducanu, but fans are hoping that things will be different in the coming months. Only time will tell.