Emma Raducanu has ended her long search for a new permanent coach after signing up with childhood mentor Nick Cavaday in time for the Australian Open next week.
The surprise 2021 US Open champion, who has earned direct entry into the main draw at the Australian Open following a number of late withdrawals, was sidelined from last April following operations on both her wrists and one ankle.
She announced she was parting ways with Sebastian Sachs last June. Sachs was another addition to the long list of coaches who have briskly entered and departed Raducanu’s inner circle in a short amount of time. Nigel Sears, Andrew Richardson, Torben Beltz and Dmitry Tursunov had also enjoyed brief stints with the Briton in the two years since her emergence at Wimbledon in 2021.
Cavaday, who was head coach of the LTA’s Loughborough Academy until April of last year, and Raducanu have begun working together in Melbourne before Tuesday’s planned charity match against Naomi Osaka.
“I’ve known Nick since I was 10 years old and he was helping me out the last week at the NTC [National Tennis Centre]. Before that the LTA helped me a ton,” Raducanu said while competing on the WTA Tour in Auckland last week.
Jack Draper eased into the last 16 of the Adelaide International with a first win of the season over Sebastian Baez. Draper was on court for less than 80 minutes as he wrapped up a 6-1, 6-3 victory over the Argentinian, hitting 17 winners along the way in a dominant outing.
The 22-year-old, who reached his maiden tour-level final in Sofia in November, will now face Miomir Kecmanovic or Mackenzie McDonald for a quarter-final place.
“I was very happy with my performance today,” said Draper. “It is not easy coming out in the first match of the year. I played here last year and am looking forward to going as far as I can this week. I feel really strong at the moment and really happy with my body and my game.”
Britain’s women’s No 1, Katie Boulter, was unable to make the same progress after losing her round of 32 match against Ana Bogdan. Boulter went down 6-3, 6-4, failing to take advantage of an early lead in the second set as her Romanian opponent took four consecutive games to shore up victory.
Meanwhile, qualifiers Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Anna Kalinskaya pulled off upset wins against seeded opponents in the first round of the tournament.
In the opening centre court match of the warm-up event for the Australian Open, French Open finalist Pavlyuchenkova ousted fifth seed Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-3, 6-4 while Kalinskaya fought for nearly three hours before defeating the fourth seed Barbora Krejcikova 7-5, 3-6, 7-5.
