almost exactly two months after she won the u.s open, emma raducanu finally has
chosen a new coach. this young woman has basically been criticized for everything she has done after
the u.s open, from being called a "party girl" to being called a coach's nightmare because she
ended a cooperation or employment with the former coach, the coach that helped her win the u.s open,
but that was a temporary agreement to begin with. there has been a lot of back and forth
about why she's waiting so long. and i have to tell you from my experience on the wta
tour having played for 10 years, i think it's absolutely fantastic that she took her time,
that she actually had some trials at her home base. and i think she has picked a great one,
torben beltz, the former coach of angelique kerber who is to my mind a great choice.
my name is meike babel, i'm a former top 30 wta pro, i played 19 grand slams and i
have insights that very, very few people have. i know what it's like to have to look for a coach,
to find a coach, to work with the coach. and i think very, very few people
know exactly how close a relationship between a player and a coach is. tennis is a very,
very weird sport in that that you are an individual, there's not as many sports like that.
most people have you know somebody uh in their head on the sidelines who's yelling, who's doing
whatever and pointing at the clipboard with you know the designated plays. that is not true for
a tennis coach and that is why i'm giving you my thoughts on why i think emma raducanu picked a
great one and what i'm hoping they'll get done. emma raducanu said that she needed somebody
with experience to now guide her after her ascent to now number 20 in the world. and i agree with
her. so now the first thing that is really great about her finding a new coach that it is finally
laying to rest the back and forth about what she should do with a coach, who she should take,
all these things. it's done, decision is made and that gives them a period of
rest now before the australian open where they can hopefully quietly in peace work together.
as i said, it is very unknown to a lot of people how tight of a relationship
that really is when you travel with the same person day in day out for about 310, 315 days out
of the year. you are spending up to 12 hours with that person, you are traveling in pretty close
quarters sometimes, you're hanging out in the hotel all the time, you're on the practice court,
you're playing matches, you are in a high pressure environment. and there are a thousand reasons
why a coaching player relationship does not work out and i think it is absolutely emma raducanu's
right to say that hey, i reached a new level in my career, whether that was within a week or not
doesn't matter. but i am at a level now that i do need somebody who's done this before. and andrew
richardson clearly was not the guy for that. their agreement was temporary anyways. he was a great
guy for getting her to the u.s at number 200 and being there for six weeks. nobody could foresee
that she would win the u.s open but i think emma raducanu is a very, very smart intelligent
self-directed athlete. and she absolutely has the right to make that choice and she absolutely has
the right to take a while over this because it is a crucial decision. and i can tell you about that
from my own career. i had not as much choice or say in the decision of who to get as a coach twice
in my career when i got a coach from the german tennis federation. i was not in the financial
situation that i could have just chosen anyone. and to be perfectly honest, both of those coaches
should have never been anywhere close to coaching females of any age. one couldn't speak english or
german and was a coach of the old school who basically just dictated. and that's not what's
happening anymore in 2021. the other one was emotionally abusive and would put anybody down,
not just me, but other players that he worked with as well. that's why he never
stayed with a player longer than two months. and that is again an example of what was unfortunately
accepted when i played because it was still the oh the coach has the you know uh absolute last word.
that is no longer true and what i think the new coach, torben beltz, brings to the table is that
he is what i call a modern coach. which is kind of crap to say that we have to call it a modern coach
just because he actually is not swinging around a huge ego and goes with that old
"my way or the highway". so here are a couple of reasons why i think he's a fantastic choice.
so i'm thinking torben beltz fits the bill um of a modern coach because he knows that his player,
his player, the player he works with is not going to get to the best performance possible if he's
just dictating it down. again this was 20, 30 years ago and people thought you could push
players to their limits by just yelling at them and telling them what to do. that is no longer
the case. players have gotten a lot more picky and yeah, are there still old school uh coaches
there? are there still cultures that maybe accept that autocratic leadership style, i'm not sure
why we call it a leadership style anyways? yes there are out there but to my mind you will not
ever get as much out of the person that you work with if you do not realize that it's an equal
relationship. it's a relationship of equals and emma raducanu has made it very clear that she
is the boss as she should be. it's her life, it's her career, she should have the last say
after carefully weighing the opinion of an expert that she trusts and respects.
and i think torben beltz fits that bill. he's got the reputation of being a super supportive
and positive guy. i've talked to a couple of my friends who are still out and about in germany and
that is really what you know everybody says about him. um that he has understood that you're not
just yelling at players. that's literally how nobody wants to be coached. at least,
i don't know anybody like that. he listens, he works with the player, he finds exactly
how that player works up here, how she works in here, and that is what you have to respect
and that is what you have to work with. every player is different. but he's shown that he is
a really respectful and really supportive guy and i think that's a really great decision emma
raducano has made because she does not want to be told what to do. she wants to be told why somebody
wants her to do certain things. and if she thinks that's the right thing to do then she will do it
and that is exactly how you get the best out of the players that you work with. you want
players, to my mind, who can think for themselves because that's when they start to also problem
solve on court. that's what you want. you don't want a player, to my mind again, who looks out
at you and goes like i don't know. but if they have worked with you in the decision making,
in how you're training, how are you competing, you have a very self-directed and self-determined
player and that's exactly what you want. and i think that's exactly what emma raducanu is. so
check mark on that for torben. another big plus i think is that torben beltz knows how to deal with
a player's newfound fame or a celebrity status. he started working with angelique kerber when she was
i think, when she started out. so she was a nobody and for a while you know they were playing,
she was playing, nothing big happened and boom all of a sudden, and i'll get to that later why
all sudden she wins two grand slams and is the number one in the world. and if people
think the british press can be brutal so is germany's press. so the demands that a number
one player at that point angelique kerber has i don't think can be any bigger than the ones that
emma raducanu now has on her time. and i think he knows exactly how to deal with that,
i think he's a very level-headed, very calming influence, very wise influence
that can guide her into what good choices are and what not good choices are. so i think that's
another check for torben. and the other thing really is that he understands that emma raducano
has made it clear that she does not want to miss either an on-court or an off-court session
because of any non-tennis related obligations. obligations the media is going to put on her,
her contract partners. when you go to a tournament, the superstar has to have more
press time, they do more with the sponsors. and that's not just her sponsors, that's
just everybody you know who's involved with that tournament. so he knows all about that and i think
he can really help her make good choices there so. when raducanu said i am making this very,
very clear to everybody in my team that i will not ever sacrifice an oncourt, off court session
for any contractual obligations, i think that shows a very mature young woman who knows exactly
what she's dealing with. so anybody who is saying oh she's going to be overwhelmed by the
attention or something. yes of course she will be overwhelmed by the magnitude maybe, but she still
seems to have in her mind, i have just made it to the top 20. i have just won
the u.s open and i haven't even started yet. i have so much of my career still ahead of me,
i now need to buckle down and work and speaking of working on and off court that is another reason
why i think torben beltz is a great choice. now i watched um angelique kerber when she was a junior,
at the end of her junior career and going into the pros. and what i saw was a young woman who
was very talented, good strokes, an unbelievable fighting spirit but none of this whoa factor.
i couldn't see the absolute amazing, stunning athlete that she would once
become and then she and torben betltz changed that. they sat down, at least that's what i've
heard and i think that's what angelique said as well, that okay with the game that she has,
angelique needs to be the fittest and the toughest out there and whoa what a transformation.
and you had somebody who was absolutely talented and everything but when angelique
kerber made a run in 2016 and then subsequently reached number one in the world, everybody
was basically saying how do i win against somebody who may not have the most fantastic strokes
but who basically matches every single one of mine, gets every single one of mine back
and outlasts me in every single rally and she can do that for six hours if need be.
that is a transformation and that i think is something emma raducanu needs. and she knows that.
she knows that she doesn't have the physicality yet to play day in day out three set matches
for four or five times in a row in seven days if you have a regular tournament. something that is
absolutely grueling and then travel to the next tournament, jumps across time zones if necessary
or if she needs to. then do it again the next week and then four, five, six times a year for the big
tournaments, for the grand slams and for the tier one tournaments, you have to do that for six,
seven, times in a row within 14 days or 10 days respectively for the tier ones. so she
knows that she is not there yet. she's had injury issue even as a junior but she's picked the guy
who has done it before. and i think that's another big check for torben. and now to what i
might want to think about the biggest reason why torben beltz is a good choice.
because he understands that being a tennis coach is not just about tennis.
he is a really good choice because he has shown that he can get players who are in slumps, i'm not
saying emma raducanu is in a slump but she hasn't done as well as at least i had hoped to stave off
all the negativity. but there must be some little self-doubt in there. and torben beltz has shown
that he can take a player and he's done it twice with angelique kerber after absolutely fantastic
years she was struggling and not doing well, not basically, again i'm doing the air signs,
living up to the expectations. because, yes, if you win a grand slam, if you are number one in the
world ,there are expectations. it's a totally different mindset winning the u.s open as an
underdog that nobody, nobody thought about could win the us open to going to now i'm the number one
seed at a tournament even if it's a smaller one as emma raducanu was in linz. so she experienced
that for the first time, got knocked out in the first round. happened to angelique kerber again a
bunch of times when she was um you know coming off her really great years. but she had a coach on her
side who didn't let her dwell on that. from what i'm hearing it was always, always, always about a)
"you will a get out of this" and b) "you're not in any situation that you need to get out of
because you are still a fantastic player". don't let those self-doubts creep in. and,
of course, he's not just saying that "don't let that self-doubt come in", which is kind of what a
lot of my coaches said. who did not necessarily understand that that does not help at all.
um he's also able to give them really constructive feedback that they can take and work with. so it's
not just the whoa "why don't you stay positive" and then don't give the player any tools. that's
not the type of guy he seems to be. so that is a really great thing because yes emma raducanu
will forever now be the hunted. she will not ever go to a tournament anymore and nobody knows her.
she will be the hot stuff because she won the u.s open. so that is another big
check for torben. when i coached at uh vanderbilt, coach mcdonald, fantastic coach over there. him
and me, we would ask each other on any given day, how much of a percentage of coach we
needed to be that day. or how much of supporter, friend, cheerleader, listener and best buddy
we would have to be again on any given day. and specifically on match day, i don't think we ever
got to over 10 of being a tennis coach, talking about the strategy, talking about your serve,
your forehand, your volleys whatever. it is more about knowing when to say what,
knowing what to say, and knowing when to not say anything at all. that is what makes a great coach.
it is not the coach that, again as i said in the beginning, stands there
with a clipboard and goes "you have to do this, this, that and this and the other".
you have to have the feel for what the player is receptive for that day. now, and of course, i'm
hearing the naysayers oh that's soft that's doing this or. no, that's just being a human, a human
being working in the most cutthroat environment that i know with the entire freaking world looking
at you. and if you have a coach who understands that and who can then also do that, to say what
needs to be said in a way that is heard, in a way that can be used for actually positive action
and who also knows when to just clearly shut the ... up, you have a great coach. and who then,
minor detail, actually knows a ton about tennis ,you got a good one. so they now,
torben and emma, have now six weeks, six, seven weeks to get ready for the australian summer.
away from the press you know just out of the eye of the media, the fans, everybody else. and
i am hoping that they really get to work and have a good season in australia because i love
watching emma raducanu. and i wish her all the best and i think she's really found a great guy.