Emma Raducanu reflects on 2025 Grand Slam losses against top-seeded athletes

Emma Raducanu exited the 2025 US Open after her third-round defeat against ninth seed and former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. The match lasted 62 minutes, with a final scoreline of  6-1, 6-2. 

In all of her previous Grand Slam tournaments this season, Raducanu was beaten by top-ranked players. She was defeated by six-time champion Iga Swiatek at both the Australian Open and French Open, and also lost to World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka at Wimbledon. 

With this experience, Raducanu expressed: “When the very top play against me, they have a point to prove that they’re at the top, and they’re there for a reason… While I’m improving, doing better, gaining maybe some more respect around, the top have definitely raised their game. Every time I’ve played one, they’ve kind of shown that.” 

Raducanu also declared that it is a compliment for her that these athletes have decided to ‘lock in’ against her, and admitted that she still has a lot of improvements to make in her playing performance. 

“It’s going to be important to just look at the last few months as a whole and the improvements that I’m making, because a match like that can easily kind of get you down if you let it,” she added.

Raducanu’s 2025 season highlight 

During this season, Raducanu has been playing without a regular coach on her side. However, she recently signed a contract with Francisco Roig last July, who used to coach the legendary Rafael Nadal. 

Raducanu has been working unofficially with her British coach, Mark Petchey, and this has helped improve her results this season. However, Petchey can’t coach her full-time because of his TV work. Now, the young athlete began working with Roig at the Cincinnati Open. He is a very experienced coach who has worked with Rafael Nadal for most of his career and also helped Matteo Berrettini. Read more here. 

Raducanu said that the agreement about the partnership would last until the end of the year, but it might extend into 2026 if possible. With this, Raducanu stated: “It’s only been three weeks, but it’s been a pretty successful three weeks in a sense that we’ve made good improvements.” 

She also emphasised that through the help of their collaboration, there are parts of her game that have gotten better, and that her weaknesses are still showing up. Raducanu said that she is looking forward to ‘building day by day’, and that she is working hard towards good things. 

“He can’t really work miracles… I know we’re doing good work, and I just look forward to continuing that,” she remarked.