Berlin – US Open winner Emma Raducanu has belatedly given her former German tennis coach Torben Beltz a big thumbs up.
“A super coach with a lot of experience, also at the top level, a great guy, always positive,” said the 19-year-old in an interview with “Bild am Sonntag” and described the collaboration: “He reminded me that I was doing a good job. I need that sometimes when I doubt myself,” the Canadian-born Brit explained. Beltz motivated her to “think positively”.
At the end of April, Raducanu had parted ways with her German coach after about half a year. She wanted to try a different training model and hoped for temporary support from the British Tennis Association LTA, she had said. She wants to “try a new system”, she now confirmed in the “BamS” interview. Beltz was also the coach of former world number one Angelique Kerber for a long time.
Raducanu had even learned German for a year at school, “but nothing stuck”. She had also learned a little from Beltz. “The bad word with sh…”, she revealed with a laugh. “We’d better take: Auf geht’s!” she then said in German.
In Stuttgart, she recently played her first clay court tournament in the pros, said Raducanu, who was eliminated there in the round of 16. She will now soon celebrate her debut at the French Open. “I want to do well there, but that will probably be later. Whereby, who knows…,” said teenager Raducanu with a view to the Grand Slam classic in Paris.
