SPOTTED: Diana Shnaider trains with Sascha Bajin, Emma Raducanu with Francisco Roig, in Cincinnati

CINCINNATI, Ohio—Diana Shnaider was seen walking the grounds of the revamped Lindner Family Tennis Center with coach Sascha Bajin, confirming reports that the two would be working together ahead of the 2025 Cincinnati Open.

Former world No. 1 Dinara Safina and former world No. 5 Anna Chakvetadze initially reported the news on their *Best Tennis Podcast* Telegram channel on Monday. Safina briefly coached Shnaider earlier in the season, pairing up before the clay-court swing in April. Shnaider confirmed their split in May.

“The experience, of course, was great,” she said at the time. “She’s a former world No. 1, so she gave me a lot of those tips on how to stay focused in a match and not to let those negative emotions ruin your game and mental skills. For sure, those are things I learned and I’ll try to use them as much as I can so I can get better each day.”

Bajin served as a longtime hitting partner for Serena Williams, later coaching Naomi Osaka to her first two Grand Slam titles at the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open. He was most recently working with 2024 Olympic silver medalist Donna Vekic.

The 21-year-old Shnaider earned a career-high ranking of No. 11 in May, and later reached her first clay-court WTA 1000 quarterfinal at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. Currently ranked No. 17, she has only won back-to-back matches once since Rome, when she made the quarterfinals of the grass-court tournament in Queen’s Club. She began her US Open swing with an opening-round defeat to Marie Bouzkova at the Omnium Banque Nationale in Montréal.

Shnaider will be the No. 14 seed in Cincinnati, the final 1000-level tournament before the US Open.

Also seen around the grounds was Emma Raducanu and Francisco Roig following a report from *The Athletic* that the former US Open champion had welcomed a longtime member of Rafael Nadal's coaching team.

Raducanu had been working with Mark Petchey, who had been part of Raducanu's team when the Brit won her maiden major title in 2021, in an unofficial capacity for much of this season, leading to a rise back up the rankings. After starting the year down at No. 60, the former world No. 10 finds herself in range for a US Open seed following a semifinal finish at the Mubadala Citi DC Open last month.

Roig worked with Nadal from 2005 to 2022, on hand for all 22 of the Spaniard's Grand Slam victories. He most recently worked with former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini until last year.