Emma Raducanu appointing Russian coach will only add to scrutiny on her

For much of the past few months, as she travelled the world without a permanent coach and assured all who asked that she could succeed while in full control of her destiny, Emma Raducanu’s decisions were the subject of intense, constant attention. She may have now addressed those concerns, but there will be no end to the inspection of her choices.

Earlier this week Raducanu enlisted the coaching talents of the former top 20 ATP player, Dmitry Tursunov, as her coach on a trial period ahead of the North American hard court swing and her US Open title defence. The hiring of Tursunov, a Russian coach, has led to significant criticism of her decision to work alongside a Russian person as the invasion of Ukraine continues.

It is yet another instance of the extreme scrutiny that has surrounded Raducanu’severy decision since her US Open victory. If she is to stand a chance of following up her breakthrough last year and sustaining a successful career, she will need to block it all out.

Raducanu now counts politicians among those monitoring her, with Chris Bryant, a Labour MP, telling the Telegraph: “The Kremlin will portray this as a PR coup and an indication that the UK doesn’t really care about the war in Ukraine, so it’ll be a real shame if Emma goes ahead with this.”

Three weeks ago, despite all of Wimbledon’s efforts to ban Russian and Belarusian players from competing at their event, a decision that has led to significant fines from the WTA and legal appeals in response, the tournament still ended with a Russian-born player who resides in Moscow winning the women’s singles title.

Even though Elena Rybakina’s success while representing Kazakhstan is a damning indictment of the Russian tennis system that failed her, in the