Tennis legend Martina Navratilova believes Emma Raducanu will know where she is heading under new coach Franics Roig by playing matches.

The British No 1 saw her US Open hopes ended in the third round with a crushing 6-1 6-2 defeat by Elena Rybakina to complete a promising summer campaign.

Raducanu also appears settled and happy in her work with Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francisco Roig – the positive atmosphere on the practice court has certainly been noticeable – and the hope must be that this partnership endures as he looks to maintain the momentum she has built as she looks to secure a seeding at the Australian Open in January.

Speaking to Gigi Salmon in a question and answer session for Sky Sports, 18-time Grand Slam singles champion Navratilova said: “Well I haven’t spoken to him [Roig] so I don’t know exactly what his mentality or philosophy on tennis is, but he’s been there for so many years with top players, with Nadal, and he certainly has the experience.

“I think you need to give it some time – you can’t after a month judge whether somebody’s a good fit or not – you should kind of know what their philosophy is before you sign up with them and then you need to buy into it and trust the process and trust in the coach that he or she knows what they’re doing and let it play out and take responsibility for yourself as well.”

Raducanu has few rankings points to defend during the rest of the season and her priority must be trying to push her ranking back towards the top 20.

Her next appearance is expected to be when she leads her country in China, with Britain facing Japan in the quarter-finals of the Billie Jean King Cup Finals on September 18 and hoping to at least match last year’s run to the last four before the WTA 1000 event in Beijing, starting on September 25 – live on Sky Sports Tennis.

“There’s no substitute for match play no matter how much you practise, how much you train,” said former world No 1 Navratilova.

“It all comes down to proofs in the eating of the pudding. It all comes down to ‘can you do it during matches?’, and then once you get those matches under your belt then you can build up to it and say ‘okay, this part of what the coach is telling me is working really well or this part is not great or I’m not ready for it or this is not the right fit for me’.

“It’s up to the player to see what works for them and make that decision, but matches tell you everything.”

Staying healthy and happy will be Raducanu’s number one goal, given injury has denied her the chance to play most of the Asian Swing for the past two years.

And Navratilova said: “Tennis is a funny sport and then you need to be fast and then slow in the match in the point right when you play the point – that’s great – and then you need to kind of shut it down and then restart again and then the fine line between being really concentrated and still being relaxed; so it’s such a balancing act in so many different ways which I think which is why it’s such a fascinating sport because you’re the only one that can fix it.”

‘Raducanu will take positives from last few weeks’

In her latest Sky Sports column, Laura Robson discussed why Raducanu must take positives from her run to the third round…

Raducanu was up against a very in-form Rybakina. You can come away from that match feeling upbeat about what Emma can improve on to challenge the cleanest hitters. And Rybakina was seeing the ball like a basketball, hitting everything in the sweet spot. For sure, a tough opponent to come up against but exciting to know that she’s got the next few months to get better, to keep working. And that’s what she’s doing on the practice court.

Being able to stay healthy and therefore play every week makes a huge difference. To give yourself the best chance of being seeded at Grand Slams, to know you won’t play another seed till the third round.

I think it’s only positives to take from the last few weeks for Raducanu. And looking ahead to a time of the season where a lot of other players are tired and there’s a lot of points still on the line. If you’re mentally fresh and feeling like you can take it on, then it’s a great opportunity.

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