Emma Raducanu has confirmed that former coach Nick Cavaday has returned to her camp for the grass season in a surprising twist of fate. Cavaday spent 14 months working with Raducanu before they parted ways in January, with the British coach stepping away from full-time travel for health reasons.

But he was spotted on the practice courts of the Queen’s Club with Raducanu, and the world No. 41 has now revealed that Cavaday will be part of her coaching camp for the entire grass swing along with Mark Petchey, who is still in Paris working as a pundit at the French Open and has yet to rock up at the West Kensington venue.

“I’m happy to see him healthy, first of all,” Raducanu said on Sunday, hours after practising under the watchful eye of Cavaday.

“I mean, it’s been such a long time since we were last on court together in Australia, and Mark is in Paris, commentating, so Nick was around and it was nice to just have a few days with him.”

Cavaday won’t just be at Queen’s this coming week, as Raducanu added: “They’ll both be helping me throughout the grass.”

The 22-year-old often turns to familiar faces when in need of a coach. Petchey, who rejoined her team on an ad-hoc basis after a trial run at the Miami Open in March, had previously worked with Raducanu in 2020.

And the former US Open champion is looking forward to having two trusting figures in her corner throughout the grass swing.

“I think having Mark and Nick, both people who have banks of experience and I think they can complement each other really well and I trust both of them a lot,” she explained. “So that is a big fundamental for me. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this upcoming season and see how it goes.”

Raducanu has a packed schedule ahead. She will compete at the Queen’s Club next week as the WTA Tour returns to London for the first time in 52 years. She has then entered tournaments in Berlin and Eastbourne ahead of Wimbledon.

Ahead of her first match at Queen’s, the British No. 2 said: “I’m happy to be here at Queen’s, it’s an event that I have come to when I was younger so to be back and to be playing it is amazing.

“First time as a women’s event for a very long time so looking forward to that and it’s going to be great to be playing on home turf with a good crowd.”

The 22-year-old will also partner up with Katie Boulter in the doubles here, though she’s hoping her fellow Brit can do most of the work.

“I really like Katie and being on court with her is going to be great. Hopefully she’s going to give me a lot of direction on what to do, tell me what to do, and I’ll try and execute,” Raducanu smiled.

“I haven’t played much doubles so for me this is extremely new and I’m not sure how it’s going to go but it’ll be a good learning experience regardless!”