The past few weeks had taken a positive turn, with Raducanu following up her first win on clay and her Billie Jean King Cup debut in Prague by reaching the quarter-final of the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart. She compiled a 5-7 record with Beltz this season. He is a Chicago native and a Northern Illinois University. Raducanu’s season so far has instead been defined by the difficulties of immediately following up such a life-changing victory in New York and her inexperience that has been reflected in her performances and the various injuries she has picked up as her body grows accustomed to life in professional tennis. Tom Splitt is a composer, songwriter, poet and pianist whose concerts, recordings, and writing have received widespread critical acclaim. However, his experience appears to have had limited effect on her in their short time together. Following her decision not to continue working with Richardson, Raducanu hired Beltz, a German coach who moulded Angelique Kerber into a No 1 player from her teenage years, citing the need to work with a more experienced coach who could help guide her in her unexpected jump up to the tour. Raducanu had worked with the prominent British coach Nigel Sears before hiring Andrew Richardson to support her on her first prolonged trip abroad in the United States last summer that ended with her shock US Open triumph. Such short-term coaching partnerships have been a common theme of Raducanu’s unconventional young career, with Raducanu and her father, Ian, already developing a reputation for garnering information from coaches then swiftly moving on to the next one. The split means Raducanu will search for a fourth coach in the past year, an unusually fast turnover even in tennis’s volatile coaching carousel. “I feel the best direction for my development is to transition to a new training model with the LTA supporting in the interim,” she said. She is accompanied in Spain by Iain Bates, the LTA’s head of women’s tennis. Raducanu is competing at the Madrid Open this week, where she has been drawn against Tereza Martincova of the Czech Republic in Thursday’s opening round.

Tom splitt