‘To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often‘- Emma Raducanu perhaps takes this phrase pretty seriously! Her frequent changes in her coaching team have come up to the limelight yet again. However, this time she perhaps has a ‘partner in crime‘ in the likes of Maria Sakkari. Both of these tennis stars are set to take on each other in the third round of the Wimbledon Championships on Friday (July 5). Before that, the Greek tennis star’s recent change in her coaching has led the tennis world to draw a parallel between her and Raducanu.

In March this year, Sakkari brought Jessica Pegula’s former coach, David Witt into her team. Witt has previously also worked with Venus Williams surprisingly it seemed the partnership clicked pretty well with the Greek as well. Maria Sakkari once even revealed, “I just feel very relaxed with David. He’s very laid back. That’s something that really helps me, being a very stressful person. I think I haven’t really stressed for anything the last few days I have been with him (smiling).” She even hailed him as an “amazing coach” and described his fun-loving nature who always loves to keep things “simple”.

In a surprising turn of events, Maria Sakkari recently ended her partnership with David Witt. Frustrated by a string of losses, World No. 9 Maria Sakkari throws in the towel with coach David Witt. After a first-round exit in Berlin, marking her third consecutive defeat, Sakkari seeks a fresh approach with a new coach in her corner. For now, Julien Cagnina (hitting partner) has replaced him on a temporary basis. This is perhaps her fifth change in her coaching in almost seven years. What made her take this decision?

Well, she hasn’t given any clarifications yet, but her counterpart, Emma Raducanu, has always come up with different versions of clarifications for frequent changes in her own coaching team. However, for Raducanu it’s more like “athletes and managers often get criticized when they are not performing well.“

If we look at the performance of Sakkari this year, although she has a win-loss record of 21-12 this year with one appearance in the finals, one SF, and one QF, the Greek has failed to clinch any title as of now. Perhaps this might be one of the reasons why these things have yet again been brought up to the scenes. We’ve seen how the tennis world got divided while judging Raducanu’s decision, but what was the actual reason for such frequent changes?

“I ask my coaches a lot of questions” – Emma Raducanu speaks about his past decisions

Previously, British tennis legend, Ann Jones brutally criticized Emma Raducanu’s strange decisions surrounding her coach staff. She said that firing a coach after she had just won the US Open was “the most ridiculous thing” she has ever heard. Then someone like Johanna Konta backed Emma Raducanu’s decisions, citing she made those calls for her “own benefits.” According to Konta, “You’re not in the business of pleasing the people outside for your choices of what you make for your own career.“

So, she believes Raducanu doesn’t need to give an explanation to anyone on this. However, still, Emma Raducanu still came up with her own justification for this decision a few months ago. She said, “I ask my coaches a lot of questions. On certain occasions, they haven’t been able to keep up with the questions I’ve asked. Maybe that’s why it ended.” Both Emma Raducanu and Maria Sakkari have now become the talk of the tennis world with their recent decisions. What are your thoughts on this issue though?