What Emma Raducanu’s early Australian Open exit really reveals about her progress

Callum Milne 21 Jan 2026 6:00 PM

Emma Raducanu celebrates during a match.

Emma Raducanu has been placed under intense scrutiny once again after her Australian Open campaign ended earlier than anticipated with a second round defeat to Anastasia Potapova.

For a player still carrying the label of Britain’s next superstar after her 2021 US Open triumph, any Grand Slam exit since has tended to be framed as a failure rather than experience to steer her back to her best.

Yet, when viewed in the context of another injury-riddled build-up, this loss Down Under revealed more about where Raducanu is in her recovery stage than where her future lies in the sport.

It’s a step forward, not a step back

Raducanu arrived in Melbourne at a physical disadvantage after another injury-interrupted build-up, with her 2025 season cut short and her return to action delayed until late December. With limited match time in her legs, she was already playing catch-up before the Australian Open had even begun.

The 23-year-old admitted in her press conference: “If you would have told me I would have played four or five matches in Australia, regardless of how they went, from a physical perspective it would have been pretty surprising.”

But a straight-sets defeat to Potapova was enough to reignite familiar criticism, with the narrative once again questioning Raducanu’s status as Britain’s leading tennis figure, rather than assessing the circumstances behind the result.

It’s always easier to dissect the outcome of a Grand Slam loss than to examine why a player returning from injury struggles to find their rhythm on the biggest of stages. For Raducanu, this remains less about ability and more about readiness.

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When fully fit, she has already shown she can compete with the elite, pushing world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka at Wimbledon as recently as July in a match that underlined her ceiling has not caved in.

Judging her season’s potential on a January Grand Slam exit dismisses the long-term benefits of physical resilience and match sharpness she’s building, which can drive her into being competitive again.

Judged on expectation rather than evidence

As the British women’s No 1, Raducanu continues to hold the weight of the nation on her shoulders – framed as the most realistic hope to lift silverware. And after completing the impossible at just 18 years old and becoming the first qualifier in history to win a Grand Slam title, Britain latched on to support their first female singles champion in 44 years.

But the inconsistencies should have been forecast in her development, especially after lifting the Grand Slam from as low as a qualifying spot. To maintain such form from occupying no level of expectation before was unrealistic, and she no doubt had to experience the physical demands the tour requires.

Raducanu currently sits at world No 29, having reached a career-high ranking of No 10 in 2022 shortly after her US Open victory.

While injuries and surgeries saw her ranking plummet as low as No 285 in 2023, her return to a year-end ranking high in four years this last December suggests under-valued progress.

Those fluctuations reflect circumstance as much as ability. Long layoffs, interrupted seasons and repeated recoveries have shaped her ranking trajectory far more than a lack of ability, underlining why isolated results rarely tell the full story.

Securing a Grand Slam title – particularly one as significant as the US Open – is character-defining, and dropping out of the Australian Open this year prematurely may taste bitter.

Yet measuring Raducanu’s entire career against that one remarkable tournament run, while also overlooking her age and injury history, says more about the expectations placed upon her than the evidence of her progress.