In 2020, Raducanu called Mark Petchey to transform her game. Here, he reveals what happened in those sessions – and his lessons for amateurs

Emma Raducanu flew into New York last week, in preparation for her US Open title defence. At the same time, one of the architects of her success was 5,000 miles away on the Greek coastline, sweating his way through fierce daily workouts with a group of club players.

Mark Petchey – who was the British No1 in the late 1980s – takes a broad-church approach to tennis coaching. At one end of the scale, he is a sought-after sounding board for stars like Raducanu – whose game he overhauled two years ago – and Andy Murray. On the other, he is the “tennis ambassador” for Neilson holidays, where his clients range from leathery-skinned strategists to wide-eyed newbies. 

So it was that, last week, I found myself among 50-odd wannabes at the Neilson tennis centre in Messini, on the southernmost part of mainland Greece. The idea was to discover more about the drills Petchey had used to reboot Raducanu’s technique during the late summer of 2020. Better still, I was hoping to have a go at them myself. 

Here was a rare opportunity, because you don’t often find a big-name coach at a holiday resort like the Messini Beachclub. As the man who helped Andy Murray secure his first ATP title – as well as a pundit and commentator for Amazon Prime – Petchey is a familiar face on our TVs, high-profile enough for his Neilson charges to seek selfies as well as technical tips. 

His status among the British tennis elite also explains why Petchey – who is 52 – received a call from Raducanu’s then agent John Morris in July 2020. He is usually too busy to take on serious coaching commitments, but the stars aligned during that Covid-wracked summer. Petchey wasn’t commentating and Raducanu wasn’t competing, so together they had a chance to reshape her fundamentals – a chance that both parties were determined to maximise. 

The results were historic. By adding more spin and control to Raducanu’s two most essential strokes – the serve and the forehand, as shown in the below video – Petchey supplied act one of the ultimate feel-good script. Some day, the movie version will compress their eight weeks of toil into a training montage, probably with an upbeat soundtrack from Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift.

A cynic might suggest that similar remedial work is required this summer. After the breathless highs of Raducanu’s breakthrough season, she has suffered a predictable reversion to the mean. Her win-loss record between June and September 2021 stood at a sensational 13-3. Since then, the equivalent numbers are 14-17. 

Yet Petchey himself cannot pinpoint any major technical flaws in Raducanu’s game. Even if he could, 2022 will see no Covid-style pause for reflection and re-evaluation. In the build-up to Monday’s US Open, one suspects that Raducanu’s latest coach – the former top-20 player Dmitry Tursunov – will focus on recreating last summer’s good vibes rather than reinventing the wheel.

“Just as an example, Emma and I needed four weeks to fix the ‘waiter’s tray’ issue in her service action,” Petchey told me in Greece, during a short break in his relentless coaching schedule. “In the middle of a season, where are you going to find that sort of time? Technically, most players are just trying to fit in a little low-level maintenance, because major reconstructions simply aren’t practical. 

“If anything, what I’d like to see from Emma next week is a shift in mindset,” Petchey added. “Watching her at the Canadian Open the other day, I noticed that she was playing a good metre further behind the baseline than when she won the US Open. 

“Sometimes, a player will find themselves slipping back a little when their confidence dips. But I like Emma’s game best when she is playing ‘tidal tennis’ – by which I mean sweeping in and out of the court as the rally demands. If she can rediscover that forward-and-back element in her game, she can make progress again in New York. I certainly see her winning more majors.” 

We were speaking on the pale green astroturf courts of Neilson’s Messini Beachclub, where my own training montage was due to begin the following morning. After an early dip in the sea (warm and flat in the middle of this European heatwave), I arrived clutching my racket with a claw-like grip. 

What fiendish drills lay in store? Petchey looked amused by my anxious expression. “People think that there is some kind of magic to elite tennis,” he said, “but the truth is that it’s still a simple game. Rafael Nadal will spend hours just hitting up and down the middle. No frills. No misses.” 

We started by discussing the bread-and-butter shot that even a weekend warrior needs to master on some level: the topspin cross-court forehand. “Before I saw Emma for the first time in person, people were already telling me that she hit her forehand flat and tended to go down the line a lot,” Petchey explained. “Which is usually an indication that someone is making contact too late. 

“It’s actually a common issue all the way up and down the game,” Petchey added, fixing me with a meaningful look. “Something most of my Neilson guests could do with addressing.” 

Shortly before Covid lockdown, Raducanu’s previous coach Philippe Dehaes had already made a bold and fundamental change by switching her extreme forehand grip – a style generally favoured by clay-court grinders – into something looser and more flexible.

Now it was Petchey’s task to establish a new forehand swing pattern, as if he were David Leadbetter and she Nick Faldo. There was an element of risk here. For the unwary, too much tinkering can tip them into a tailspin. But Raducanu proved to be a smart, speedy and committed learner. 

“We did weeks of hand-feeding to get the shape in place,” said Petchey, as he under-arms me a gentle ball from a couple of yards away. “We needed to address a low elbow in her takeback, because it left her pushing the ball when she was rushed. [Pushing – which means hitting with minimal spin or velocity – is a cardinal sin for advanced players.] 

“The modern forehand has three stages,” Petchey explained. “First, you pull the racket back high, like you’re trying to elbow someone in the teeth. Then you drop it down behind you into what Rick Macci [the Williams sisters’ childhood coach] calls the ‘pat the dog’ position, with the tip pointing at the back fence and the face turned to the ground. Finally, you whip the front edge through and finish high again.” 

In 2020, Raducanu called @_MarkPetchey to transform her game. Here, he reveals what he changed about her forehand...#TelegraphSport #USOpen

He continued under-arming balls softly in my direction, and advised me not to worry about where my newly adjusted swing – which initially felt stilted and awkward – might be sending them. A good thing, as some rolled along the ground while others sailed over the fence and disrupted the pick-up matches on the next-door court. But Petchey enthused over the occasional Goldilocks effort that found the middle ground. 

“Hear that sound?” he said, placing a finger to his ear. “It’s a clean, sharp ‘pop’, like a bubble bursting. That’s when you know you’ve made a sweet connection.” 

Raducanu spent the latter part of 2020 trying to bed in the new swing. The early months of 2021 were more focused on her A-Levels, but by the time she arrived at Wimbledon, she was striking her forehand well in front of her body in a classical position. Her ball had a lovely blend of depth, control and just enough pace to keep opponents scrambling. 

“Emma’s attitude during our sessions was spot-on,” said Petchey. “She had just passed her driving test, so she was driving across from Bromley to the National Tennis Centre on the other side of London, then putting in three-hour sessions where she was totally engaged, asking questions, concentrating on every ball. 

“My philosophy of coaching is informal: I just try to react to what’s working and what isn’t. But the one thing I did say to Emma, and that I say to the clients here in Messini as well, is ‘You need to have a full tool-kit to be the best version of yourself on the court.’” 

Back in the summer of 2000, the other spanner missing from Raducanu’s tool-kit was a kick serve. The explanation lay in a technical fault so common that you will see it at every club in the country. As explained in the video below, this was the infamous “waiter’s tray” – so called because the racket faces upwards at the top of the swing in the manner of a waiter carrying a tray of drinks on an upturned palm. 

In 2020, Raducanu called @_MarkPetchey to transform her game. Here, he reveals the move away from the 'waiter's tray' serve.#TelegraphSport #USOpen

The waiter’s tray might not sound problematic in itself, but it leads to a very basic action in which the racket slams forward like a hammer landing on a nail. Whereas a textbook serve – as modelled by Nick Kyrgios during the Wimbledon final – ends in a flick of the wrist that carves the racket up and around the ball. In an echo of the forehand patterns discussed earlier, a flat serve offers no margin for error, whereas a textbook action delivers pace and spin in just the right balance. 

To fix the waiter’s tray – which I and most of my fellow Messini guests were equally guilty of – Petchey revealed a cunning ruse. He instructed us to take the racket back as normal, then – as we approached that decisive moment at the top of the swing – to lift our two smallest fingers off the racket grip. Now the weight of the racket forced it down into the “backscratcher” position and shifted the whole angle of attack. 

Neilson is the UK’s largest overseas activity holiday company, with seven similar centres across the Mediterranean offering everything from windsurfing to yoga. Mark Petchey Tennis Week returns at Alana Neilson Beachclub, on Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast, in late September 2022.

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