Agassi urges Raducanu to 'be comfortable in your own identity' ahead of Laver Cup

Andre Agassi has offered advice to Emma Raducanu while speaking to BBC Breakfast ahead of the Laver Cup in London, in an article published on 23 September 2026. Raducanu has been taking inspiration from Agassi's 2009 autobiography as she plots a route back to the top of the sport.

Raducanu won the US Open five years ago at 18, becoming the first qualifier in the Open era to win a Grand Slam, and Agassi was a teenage prodigy who won his first major at Wimbledon in 1992 aged 22. Agassi later endured a four-year spell without a major and fell to 141st in the world before rebuilding his career. Raducanu reached a career-high ranking of 10 in July 2022 but has since slipped to 98th and her progress has been affected by a series of physical problems.

Speaking about Agassi's book to Uniqlo, Raducanu said: "I was especially intrigued by the passage where he got out of his slump in the late 1990s by creating his own training regimen and finding his way back to the top," and added: "It speaks in depth about his early successes and the lows he reached, perhaps as a result of them. "A lot of it was so relatable."

Agassi told BBC Breakfast he hoped his experiences would help other players. "It's wonderful to hear that anybody can relate," he said. "It was literally the hope that if one person read it and it gave them hope, some tools to understand that they're not alone, they can figure it out and get to a healthier place without having to direct their frustrations at the game of tennis, then it was a success for me. "So, hearing that 17 years later it can still impact somebody, especially in this game, it does make me feel good."

When asked what advice he would give Raducanu, Agassi said: "I would encourage her to focus on being the best of herself on a daily basis, but don't judge that by results or thinking that somehow you have to be 100%. "You have to learn to be 100% of whatever percent you're at [and] be comfortable in your own identity inside of that - not what people say. "Back in my day, I could just put down the paper and not read it. Now it seems like it's harder for these youngsters to avoid."

Agassi recalled that tennis was not a childhood passion and that his father's pressure led him to play with "fear" before his decline from world number one to 141st allowed him to reconnect with the sport. He also noted his off-court work during that period, saying: "I had more success from that point forward than I did playing out of fear." On parenting, he advised: "The first thing I would advise a parent to think about is that it's not their life, it's their child. "You raise a child in their way and they'll never depart from it. You just have to find out what their way is."

Raducanu's recent setbacks include missing the US Open while recovering from a stress fracture in her lower right leg, a foot injury that disrupted her pre-season training and a post-viral illness that kept her off court for two-and-a-half months earlier this year; she did, however, reach the final at Queen's Club in June, her biggest final since the 2021 US Open.

Agassi, who won all four Grand Slams and claimed Olympic singles gold at the 1996 Games, will captain Team USA in the Laver Cup at The O2 in London later this week, between 25-27 September; on the event he said: "Tennis is a hamster wheel of sorts - the fact that these guys make room in their schedule to play this incredible event tells you how great this event is," adding: "We're obviously playing Team Europe, in Europe, so I don't know where the crowd is going to have their heart. "But I know one thing - they're going to see some spectacular tennis."