Time is everything in tennis. Not only in the sense of connecting sweetly with a right -wing blow but in the fluid world of training appointments.
Emma Raducanu is in no hurry to choose her next coach and is also fine. This is a decision to make and a player can learn a lot about themselves of a few weeks flying alone; It is good for the soul.
However, three defeats in a row since Nick Cavaday resigned from health reasons has imparted an emergency feeling, and Raducanu seemed especially lost in the defeat by Ekaterina Alexandrova in Qatar on Sunday.
The problem is that the best man for work will soon be eliminated from the market. Andy Murray remains in conversations with Novak Djokovic and is likely to extend his training agreement at least to Wimbledon.
If there is any unexpected inconvenience in the discussions of the two old rivals, then Raducanu should not doubt: Murray is the perfect man to unleash his talent. The moment may not be correct at this time, but there will come a time when the stars align so that these two work together.
No one can better understand the weight of the expectation on the shoulders of the 22 -year -old. Although his first races were polar opposites, Raducanu caused him to win a Grand Slam was ridiculously easy, Murray cried strongly, both grew under a strong focus of attention. Both are victims of the British peculiar fixation by knocking down a young star.
No one can better understand the weight on Emma Raducanu's shoulders than Andy Murray
Both grew under the strong focus that follows a young British tennis star
It is strange to remember now, but Murray once had the same reputation as physical fragility that Raducanu is still trying to shake.
The 2021 United States Open Champion will never share Murray's masochistic love for pain, but the art of building a body equipped for the rigors of the tour, the elaboration of a schedule to put matches on the legs while remains fresh for the Grand Slams, this can learn, and what better teacher than Murray.
He would have had a lot of time on such alliance in mid -July last year, after the soap opera of Raducanu's withdrawal as Murray's mixed double partner in his last Wimbledon.
But, as he told us in Melbourne, Raducanu contacted to soften things and both are in good terms. In fact, Murray's decision to choose it first and Raducanu's ecstatic response shows the consideration in which they remain with each other.
A more relevant problem is Murray's lack of will to travel full time away from his young family. That leads us to an important point: whoever Raducanu designates, she would do well to look for not a single coach, but two.
This is the way in which the modern game is changing. The demands of a coach are vast and cover 30-40 weeks of the year. The group of elite trainers willing to carve a part of their life is becoming smaller and smaller.
Then, many players, especially at the elite end of the game, have a number 1 and a No 2. Jannik Sinner has Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi; Carlos Alcaraz has Juan Carlos Ferrero and Samuel López, who took the reins when he won the title of Rotterdam last week. Coco Gautf has Matt Daly and Jean-Christophe Faurel.
Part of the motivation behind Cavaday's decision to get away was a lack of will, given his health problems, to commit to a complete tour season, with Raducanu determined to play more events this year.
Murray has been working with Novak Djokovic and will continue working with him through this year's Wimbledon
If there is ever a hiccup in the Djokovic-Murray relationship, then Raducanu should be direct by phone with his British partner
In December, during a preseason conversation with Raducanu, she suggested that she was already looking to recruit a second coach to take some pressure from Cavaday.
While traveling coaches at the beginning of his career, Raducanu ranged from the established names: Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov, and confidence allies of the past, the covadia coach Cavaday or the Big Sister Jane O'Donoghue, who was with her in Qatar In Qatar last week.
If you are deciding which way to change this time, why not get the best of both worlds: a confident confidant along with a larger profile coach?
If that last appointment should not be Murray, then Raducanu's options are thin on the ground. The moment of Cavaday's departure has not helped. As in football, there is an annual round of musical chairs in the low season of tennis and, as the Premier League clubs threatened, hiring a coach in the middle of the season is less simple.
The most intriguing option is another man who has worked with Djokovic. Goran Ivanisevic is available after its brief and messy period with Elena Rybakina.
Raducanu's service is becoming an important problem and who is better to solve it than the man who made his way to Wimbledon's title in 2001. If that sounds simplistic, he hires a great server to solve your service, that was the summary Ivanisevic's main one when he joined the Djokovic team in 2019 and converted the Serbs service into a formidable weapon.
Brad Gilbert, one of Murray's first coaches left by Gaff's team last September, would be an ambitious choice. The 63 -year -old is a crazy genius, but few know more about tennis tactics.
Any of which would make an exciting appointment. But there is an association that will really make the pulses accelerate, even if you have to wait another day and another moment.
Nick Cavaday (left) had to leave the Raducanu camp while fighting health problems
Murray is the man for Raducanu's career to work again after a training carousel
Carlos Alcaraz channels his interior year …
It may seem like a strange comparison between a 21 -year -old Spanish player who has just won his 17th race title and an 59 -year -old Australian football manager who has been expelled from two cup competitions in a week … but Carlos Alcaraz It sounded a bit like Ange Postecoglou in Rotterdam.
After his last round of Victoria about Andrea Vavassori, Alcaraz said: 'As I said many times, getting victory is important, but I am here to entertain people. Make them happy, make them enjoy seeing my games.
Big Ange could have said after one of Tottenham's white knuckle rides towards disaster. Clearly, the Cavalier style is working better for Alcaraz than for Postecoglou, but suspicion remains that to truly fulfill its astronomical potential that you need to learn to gain ugly a little more often.
One thing is absolutely true for Alcaraz. As Postecoglou once said: “When I have gone for a long time, everyone stops for me.”
Carlos Alcaraz's speech had the characteristics of something that Ang Posttecoglou would say
Mixed US Open Reception
The US Open Riff about the mixed event, announced on Tuesday, has managed to unite the doubles community, in anger and dismay. This year, in Flushing Meadows, the mixed doubles will be played the week before the fortnight tournament, in sets of the first to four games.
In a naked contempt for traditional exponents, the qualification will be based on singles, and not doubles, classifications. It is a peculiar way to decide a Grand Slam title and a bastardization of an event won by Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams.
But the interest in the doubles is unfortunately low and, if the USTA has somehow deciphered the code on how purposes will justify the media.
One to look
It is not a new but forgotten name. Denis Shapovalov – Remember it? – He won the Dallas Open on Sunday and returns to the top 50 for the first time from Wimbledon 2023, when he gave to persistent knee pain and took six months free.
It is difficult to exaggerate how big it was calculated that it was Shapovalov; In 2017 at the age of 18 he was the third favorite for the United States Open, behind Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
It seems unlikely that he ever fulfills those high expectations, but it will be good to see that fierce reverse of one hand near the top of the game once again.