Emma Raducanu finding a better “normal” at US Open with new coach Francisco Roig

NEW YORK—“That’s normal,” Emma Raducanu’s new coach, the reliably chatty Francisco Roig, told her during the first set of her 6-2, 6-1 win over Janice Tjen on Wednesday.

That may not sound like a brilliant insight. And it’s not clear whether Raducanu could even make out what he was saying in an arena as buzzy as Louis Armstrong Stadium. “You don’t really hear it unless you’re kind of lip-reading,” she says of Roig’s flow of chatter from the sidelines.

Yet those two words—“that’s normal”—still felt like a significant moment in their new partnership, and possibly in Raducanu’s future.

Read More: Emma Raducanu cuts through the noise with first US Open win since 2021 title run

Roig made his observation when Raducanu had a 3-0 lead over Tjen. The Brit came out looking like the former US Open champ she is, hitting her spots with her serve, grabbing the initiative in the rallies as quickly as possible, and taking Tjen’s strength, her forehand, away from her by aiming straight for it. The young Indonesian, who was playing her first tour-level event, looked like she didn’t know what hit her.

Up an early break and in command of the points, Raducanu might have been tempted to take her foot off the gas on Tjen’s serve. Instead, she won the first point with a strong counterpunching forehand, and won the next one with something even better: a deep return and then a full-throttle forehand that she hammered past Tjen. The last shot was her most spectacular of the match so far, but it was also the one that Roig wanted her to consider “normal.”

For today at least, Roig proved to be prescient. Raducanu may have played her best match of the season, and her precision and decisiveness were reminiscent of how she went about winning the title here in 2021. Her stat line was pristine. She had eight aces and zero double faults, made 79 percent of first serves and won 76 percent of those points. She hit 16 winners and made eight errors, and wasn’t broken.

Raducanu called Tjen a “dangerous” opponent. Despite the one-sided scoreline, she wasn’t exaggerating. The 23-year-old has a powerhouse forehand, has torn up the ITF Circuit recently, upset 24th seed Veronika Kudermetova in the first round, and will be a player to watch. All of which made Raducanu’s ability to keep her from getting any kind of foothold in the match, or in the rallies, more impressive.

“Of course I was on full alert playing today,” Raducanu said. “I thought any ball that I put mid-court was going to be punished. So I’m very pleased with how I kept dictating the points, I kept dictating the play, and didn’t let her too often get her front foot on the court.”

Not surprisingly, Roig has Raducanu practicing hard. They did an extra hour of work after her first-round win.

“I feel in the last few weeks I’ve really kind of stepped up with what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m really happy with the people I have in my corner.”

When it comes to coaches, Raducanu is known for her high turnover rate. She has had eight of them since winning the Open. But the early signs with Roig are good. He spent most of his career as the No. 2 man with Rafael Nadal, behind Rafa’s uncle Toni. Over the years at Indian Wells, it was a common sight to see Rafa and Roig on the practice courts, having a lengthy and animated confab about a technical aspect of one of his strokes.

“Francis is a very good coach, and a man who can help Raducanu improve technically—he puts a lot of attention on this,” Toni Nadal told the BBC earlier this month.

“I put a lot of trust in what I’m doing with Francisco on the practice court,” Raducanu says. “I’m enjoying getting better, and the process of feeling like at the end of the day I’m satisfied I got a little bit better, and just repeating it.”

As someone who helped make Nadal the champion he was, Roig should also give Raducanu a sense of exactly what it takes to become a full-time top player. The only slight question we might have right now is whether she’s physically ready for the kind of work he’s demanding. The oft-injured Raducanu felt a twinge of stiffness in her back late in her match on Wednesday.

“I’ve been doing a lot of training, and I’m just happy it didn't affect me too much in the second set,” she said. “I think that from now on, I’m just going to focus on staying sharp and still practicing when I need to.”

So far, Raducanu trusts her coach, and she already looks sharper for it. She may get a good early test of their progress in her next round, when she could face Elena Rybakina.

Beyond that, Roig seems to understand that Raducanu has a lot of room to improve before she hits her ceiling. “Normal” for her should be a much higher level than what we’ve seen over the last four years.