When Emma Raducanu experienced a hip spasm as she slumped to a first-round defeat against China’s Xinyu Wang in Linz last November, she said her body was still trying to get up to speed with the physical demands of the tour. That she experienced a similar problem against Daria Saville in the first round of the Guadalajara Open, where a hip injury forced her to retire with the Australian leading 5-7, 7-6 (7-4), 4-3, merely emphasises how circumstances since then have denied her the opportunity to address the issue.
No one could question Raducanu’s conditioning. At three hours and 36 minutes, her contest against Saville was the lengthiest of the WTA season so far. In 2021, only five matches lasted longer. It bodes well that, at 19 years old and after only eight months on the tour, the top seed was able to compete for so long, at altitude and against a considerably more experienced opponent who has been ranked as high as 20th in the world.
Yet the US Open champion’s efforts to prepare herself physically for her first full season as a professional have been repeatedly undermined. In mid-December, Raducanu contracted Covid at an exhibition event in Abu Dhabi, forcing her to abandon what would have been the first proper off-season training block of her career. The effects of the virus lingered and, when she returned three weeks later in Sydney, she was swept aside by Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina in just 55 minutes.
An opening-round win over Sloane Stephens augured well for her subsequent Australian Open campaign, but lack of court time had softened Raducanu’s hands and a cripplingly painful blister severely compromised her performance against Danka Kovinic in the next round.
Raducanu’s travails should not come as any great surprise. She needs time to adapt to life as a full-time professional, and to her newly elevated status – not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. The real wonder is that, just months into her career, she is already a grand slam champion. Her fairytale run at the US Open, where she became the first qualifier in history to win a slam, set an improbably high bar. A period of adjustment was inevitable, but that should apply as much to the expectations surrounding Raducanu as the player herself. Some questioned where her priorities lay amid the celebrity social engagements and high-value endorsements that rolled in after her Flushing Meadows success. Just as it appeared ludicrously premature to question her commitment to the game then, so it would seem unwise to apportion blame for her struggles now.
Has Raducanu been badly advised? No. She could have played the WTA 1000 event in Qatar this week, but opted instead to play in Guadalajara, where there are only 250 points on offer, putting evolution before ego. In Australia, her team, headed by the experienced German coach Torben Beltz, advised her against facing Kovinic when the extent of her injury became apparent. It was Raducanu’s decision to fight through the pain and see how far she could get.
Is she then too headstong? Hardly. Everything about her career so far suggests she is a mature, level-headed young woman who appreciates that she is still learning her craft and is ready to cut herself the necessary slack to do so. The sanguine attitude with which Raducanu greeted her Australian Open defeat – unable to grip the racket properly, she was forced to slice her forehand, but reflected afterwards that she had discovered useful hand skills and an encouraging capacity to play through pain – was once again evident in Guadalajara, where she put her latest setback down to experience.
“Tough match, but I mean not much I can do,” said the 12th-ranked Briton, who came within two points of defeating Saville in straight sets when she served for the match at 5-3 in the second set. “It was a good fight.”
There will be plenty more such battles ahead this season, and this is unlikely to be the last bump in the road for Raducanu, who is fighting on multiple fronts as she seeks to strengthen her body and adjust to the sea change in her life since last summer while contesting every match in the knowledge that she is now a prize scalp. As Judy Murray has cautioned, Raducanu will need time – and breathing space – to acclimatise.
“It will be a steep learning curve on the women’s circuit as she adjusts from the relative anonymity of an A-Level schoolgirl to the dog-eat-dog world of week in, week out tour tennis,” Murray wrote in a newspaper column in December.
“Her tennis is already in such a good place, but it’s important that we don’t heap expectation and pressure on her. She’s a teenager. Let’s give her time and space to grow her game and get to grips with what the pro tennis circuit will demand of her.”
As those demands become increasingly apparent, that entreaty feels more pertinent than ever.