Boris Becker has his say on Iga Swiatek turning to Emma Raducanu mentor | Tennis | Sport

On Thursday, the world No. 4 confirmed that she had appointed Roig as her new coach in a social media post. The pair have started their new partnership with a short training block at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca as they look ahead to the clay season. Retired 22-time Grand Slam champion Nadal was spotted giving Swiatek some guidance during their practice sessions.

While Roig and Raducanu didn’t work out, another retired tennis icon believes Swiatek has made the right decision in hiring the 58-year-old. Boris Becker shared a video of Nadal and Roig watching over Swiatek’s training session, and voiced his approval.

“Love Rafa , the best there ever was certainly on clay ! Also respect Francisco Roig ! I have met him many times and love talking tennis with him! Good choice IGA !!!” the six-time Major winner tweeted.

“I think I want to be playing a different way, and I think the misalignment with how I’m playing right now and how I want to be playing is something that I just want to work on,” she said.

The world No. 28 later told Sky Sports that it was Roig who ended their partnership. “We have a great relationship, we could have a really open and honest conversation. He ended up saying, ‘Look, I don’t think this is going in the way we both want it to’, so he ended it really. In a way I think we had a few moments where we weren’t agreeing on a few things,” she explained.

Swiatek had similar issues with her recent coach, Wim Fissette. The Belgian coach had been trying to develop her game style, but Swiatek struggled to follow the plan when she found herself in tough positions in matches.

After losing in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, the Polish star explained: “There are some stuff on the serve that I want to change, and I already changed that in the pre-season, but then, you know, matches come, and you don’t have that much time to, like, think about this. You don’t want to think about these kind of details when you play. So then it comes back to the old patterns, you know.”

Swiatek and Fissette parted ways last week, days after she lost her opening match at the Miami Open to Magda Linette. It was the world No. 4’s first opening-round exit since 2021. She’s now preparing for the clay swing with Roig, and is set to compete in the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart from April 13.