Emma Raducanu has been getting to work with her highly rated new fitness coach Yutaka Nakamura.

The 22-year-old, who has been beset by injuries ever since her 2021 US Open triumph, hired Nakamura earlier this month after a trial period.

Strength and conditioning expert Nakamura, 52, has helped Maria Sharapova and Naomi Osaka to Grand Slam titles. 

On his appointment earlier this month Raducanu announced that he can help her become ‘one of the best athletes in tennis’ and felt they were on the ‘same wavelength’.

On Monday Nakamura posted an Instagram photo of the pair smiling together and captioned it ‘new beginning,’ with Raducanu going on to share the post to her Stories page. 

‘Let’s goo,’ Raducanu added. 

She believes the highly rated coach can help her become ‘one of the best athletes in tennis’

Raducanu has been plagued by injuries but thinks she is finding the right balance to progress

On Friday Raducanu will fly to New Zealand to begin preparations for next month’s Australian Open, where her best result is the second round. 

Raducanu has been dogged by injuries so appointing a full-time fitness coach is a major step in the right direction. Nick Cavaday heads up the coaching team after joining at the start of 2024 and he has provided stability after she went through five coahces in the first three years of her career. 

Earlier this month she said of Nakamura joining her team: ‘He is going to help me explore how far I can go athletically. It’s a big strength of mine that I have nowhere near fulfilled. I can become one of the best athletes in tennis and he’s really going to help.

‘He’s going to be with me a lot next year. I am looking forward to it. We’re quite similar in the sense that when we work, we’re not chit-chatting about other things. It’s very much like: this is our time to focus. It’s nice to have someone on the same wavelength.’

Raducanu has competed in 14 events this year, which is fewer than all but two other players in the top 100.  

She recently added:  ‘I want to play more than I did this year. Now with my setup, I don’t need to come back (to London) to continue good physical work. I can do it every day on the road, like microdoses.

‘After Korea (where a foot injury in September put her out for two months) I had some time to think. I was really creative. I was playing the piano, I was painting, exploring my artistic side. 

‘It was a turning point where I was just like, I really want to stay healthy next year. I want to make sure I’m consistently doing the physical stuff because every time I went on a trip this year, the fitness would take a back seat. I’d have press, tennis, whatever, and then the fitness, because I didn’t have someone able to adapt the session, it would just not be done.

‘That’s when I started looking at Yutaka. It was a big moment where I really wanted to spend more time and energy on my fitness.’