Although Emma Raducanu’s final grand slam of the year ended in a painfully familiar way to the three that preceded it, there is no doubt it has been her best season since 2021.

Unlike the fairy tale of four years ago, her 2025 is not about a single standout moment, but rather a gradual climb and something she has not managed until this point of her professional career: consistency.

After a tear-filled US Open defeat in the first round 12 months ago that saw Raducanu briefly replaced as the British No 2 by Harriet Dart, this year has been a dramatic uplift.

Last year it was all about the standout victories she managed. Beating Jessica Pegula, Maria Sakkari and Sloane Stephens, but she only made the fourth round at one major, falling before the third in the other two that she entered.

Although on the face of it her record at the slams has been similar in 2025, the opponents have not. At Melbourne Park and Roland Garros, Raducanu was beaten by Iga Swiatek, at Wimbledon it was Aryna Sabalenka, and at Flushing Meadows, Elena Rybakina.

Although the run in New York was brought to an abrupt end in a 62-minute defeat by Rybakina, Raducanu managed to break the run of first-round exits that had followed since her trophy lift four years ago.

Improvements

Raducanu loves to tinker with her technique, she is constantly running experiments and looking to find the tweak that might just give her the edge.

Over the last year one of the subjects of her focus has been the serve. In Australia she served 15 double faults in a win over Ekaterina Alexandrova, but a few iterations – and coaches – later and it was praised by Tim Henman in the first two rounds at the US Open.

Although her first serve failed her against Rybakina – she only landed 50 per cent in the opening set and 63 per cent overall – it is developing into a reliable weapon.

In New York she also worked on her backhand slice, even taking on new coach Francis Roig in a slice competition during her lengthy practice sessions.

It is hoped that Roig can continue to improve her game, with their deal due to last until the end of the year.

Coaching changes

At the start of the year, Raducanu was forced into making a coaching change. Nick Cavaday had to step down from his role as her coach due to a chronic health condition, leaving her looking for a then-seventh full-time coach in her three-and-a-half years as a professional.

Mark Petchey took up the role on an interim basis – aside from a two-week period where she trialled Vladimir Platenik – combining coaching with his broadcast commitments for the Tennis Channel. But it could not be a long-term approach because Petchey’s time was limited.

Three weeks before the US Open, however, Raducanu made another appointment – Rafael Nadal’s former coach Roig, who has unparalleled technical knowledge. It is too early to tell how the partnership will grow, as by the time she exited the US Open they had only been working together for three weeks, but there are already positives.

Notably, she trusts Roig, and they enjoy time together playing football, golf, eating steak and learning Spanish.

Obstacles still to overcome

The big question mark when it comes to Raducanu is her record against those ranked in the top 10. In 18 meetings she has only managed to win three times, and none of them at a grand slam.

The latest schooling by Rybakina only reinforces the notion that Raducanu, 22, still has a long way to go. That being said, if she can win enough other matches to break into the seeded places it could be hugely beneficial to her performances.

After all, comfortable victories over two players ranked outside the top 100 were hardly ideal preparation to play Rybakina, who on her day is a better player than her ninth-seed ranking.

Fitness

Since 2021, one of the biggest problems for Raducanu has been to remain fit enough to play a full part of the tour. She has had surgery on both wrists, a serious ankle injury and numerous other problems that have forced her to spend months off court.

In 2024, she played just 36 matches, and started this year with a back problem. But the appointment of fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura seemed to have changed that.

Although Nakamura had to return to his native Japan a few months later for personal reasons, there have been no major lay-offs since Miami.

Other than a minor back problem that forced her to retire from Berlin and affected her French Open, from Queen’s and into the US-swing, Raducanu has not been obviously hampered by fitness troubles.

What’s next?

Raducanu’s main goal over the Asia swing, which she has not been able to play a full part in before due to injuries, has to be to try to break into the seedings ahead of the Australian Open in January.

After the defeat by Rybakina, she acknowledged: “I’ve just got to do my best in the next few months until Australia to just keep working to try and close the gap.

“I think depending on the day, depending on how we match up, I think I’m getting better overall. I think I’m improving for sure in the last few months. So I just need to keep consistent and put this one behind me.”

Raducanu needs to bring in new patterns

Why is there such a huge disparity in Emma Raducanu’s performances this year? And why haven’t promising showings against decent players translated into more respectable scorelines against the world’s true elite?

The answer is partly game-style, and partly psychology. Raducanu has a very specific idea of how tennis works. She expects a good shot – and especially a good serve – to bring a reward. When the short return does not materialise – and it tends not to against players of the quality of Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina – she feels baffled and powerless.

If there was a common theme in the drubbings that Raducanu suffered in Melbourne, Paris and New York, all against these two players, it was the uncertainty of her strategy. She might have tried the occasional slice, or the odd looped return, but there was no focused thought, just a sense of gathering panic.

Raducanu is a pure striker of the ball who, because of her relative lack of stature, does not generate as much power as the very best. Her real skill lies in using her fleet-footed movement to step into the court and take time away from her opponent. But Swiatek and Rybakina deny her that opportunity with their consistent depth, pace and spin.

So what should she do? Well, it does not work to go out and try to hit the ball more purely than these women. A better strategy would be to jam them up with body serves, and then use lots of variation: high balls, deep and central balls, slices, unexpected combinations.

The aim is to bring your opponent’s level down, even if it involves playing worse yourself. As it happens, Raducanu took out two very talented ball-strikers at January’s Australian Open – Amanda Anisimova and Ekaterina Alexandrova – when she was fighting her own game and scrambling balls back in any old way.

As Raducanu has found better form throughout 2025, she has given these smooth hitters more rhythm to work with. Both Anisimova and Alexandrova have scored revenge wins over her this season.

Admittedly, she has pushed world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in a couple of matches. But then Sabalenka has been struggling on return of serve all year, and has thus coughed up the short balls she thrives off.

A very smart and dextrous player, Raducanu is well placed to apply unexpected strategies. Whether this is the forte of her new coach Francis Roig, however, remains to be seen. His strength appears to lie in stroke mechanics, and when Raducanu was under pressure against Rybakina, he advised her to “do something different” without specifying what it should be.

Raducanu says that her immediate priority is to improve the quality of her strokes. And that might help. But the fact remains: she does not have the physical raw materials of Rybakina, Swiatek and Anisimova. At some stage, she needs to accept that – against high-quality players like these – she needs to bring in new patterns. The established ones have resulted in some thumping defeats.

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