A shot at her second career title turned into a day of courtside drama for Emma Raducanu. Backed by the home support, she entered the finals at Queen’s as the favorite but was blown away by Donna Vekic’s opening assault. Dropping 16 of the first 21 points, Raducanu launched all her frustration at her coaching box.
Vekic broke serve early, and Raducanu couldn’t find her rhythm in the match as Vekic stormed to a 4-0 lead. She seized on that advantage and closed the first set 6-0 in just 28 minutes. At that point, fatigue seemed to be seeping into Raducanu, as the Brit had to win two consecutive matches the day before, after the schedule was marred by rain.
Raducanu’s frustration boiled over in the opening game of the second set. “Say something, you’re saying nothing,” she snapped at her coaching box and coach Andrew Richardson, according to the Athletic.
Despite the bleak start, Raducanu surged back, taking a 5-2 lead in the second set, and with the home crowd behind her, a third set looked imminent. However, Vekic rallied back, attacking the British player’s inconsistent serve, went 6-5 up, and had championship points in the 12th game. Raducanu held on, taking it to a tiebreak, with the crowd still hoping for a third-set showdown.
The momentum in the tiebreak swung to and fro as well, as Vekic took a 4-1 lead. But Raducanu refused to give up and made it 4-4. However, Vekic was the better player on the day and finally converted on her fourth match point, becoming the first WTA player to win a WTA 500 title as a lucky loser.
Both Raducanu and Vekic are slated to play this week as well, with the Brit in action at the Nottingham Open and Vekic in Berlin. However, given the Queen’s run, both players might opt out of the events to recover and prepare for Wimbledon, which is two weeks away.
When her current coach, Andrew Richardson, guided her to the biggest underdog victory in the sport at the 2021 US Open, it was considered that the two might enter a long-term collaboration, a notion Raducanu put an end to after New York, severing ties with Richardson.
To maintain her tennis standards after winning the Grand Slam, Raducanu worked with more experienced coaches, including Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov, and Sebastian Sachs, between 2022 and 2023, but she parted ways with all of them after brief stints.
She reconnected with her childhood coach, Nick Cavaday, in 2024, but that arrangement also ended in 2025. She then made one of the biggest coaching hires of her career, bringing Francisco Roig onto her team, who had an impressive resume, having been part of Rafael Nadal’s coaching entourage.
Roig was considered a masterstroke by many, but Raducanu disagreed with the technical direction the Spaniard had in mind for her game, leading to their parting of ways after the 2026 Australian Open; following that, she partnered with Richardson again.
Before this event, Raducanu had a 7-7 win-loss record for the season, despite having one runner-up finish in Transylvania, and was suffering from a viral illness, which makes her run at Queens even more impressive, considering she played multiple matches in a day.
Should the Raducanu-Richardson duo have a long and meaningful stint, the British player has the opportunity to perform at the highest level as she did back in 2021.
