Emma Raducanu ready for ‘bumpy ride’ on WTA Tour ‘after all the good fortune’ during debut campaign

Tennis News
Emma Raducanu talks to the media

She accepts that life on the WTA Tour is not always going to be the “smoothest ride”, but Emma Raducanu is prepared to take the bad with the good.

Raducanu acknowledges that she had “all the good fortune” in 2021 when she became the first qualifier to lift a Grand Slam title, winning 10 matches en route to the US Open trophy in September.

Having started the year outside the world top 300, she finished the campaign inside the top 20 after also reaching the quarter-final of the Transylvania Open.

Emma Raducanu has a ‘target on her back’, but former world No 1 confident she will ‘be a top five player’

However, she has stuttered outside of those events as she made early exits from several tournaments, including the Sydney International, Australian Open and WTA event in Guadalajara this year.

The 19-year-old has also struggled with illness and injury as she tested positive for Covid-19 in December and suffered from blisters in Melbourne and a hip injury in Mexico.

Raducanu, though, is seeing her glass as half full.

“I was hoping for a really good pre-season in December which didn’t happen because I got Covid,” the British No 1 said.

“And then I took three weeks off, and then in Australia, I kind of felt the effect of that because I got blisters because my hands got soft and then I got a leg injury, but it’s all part of it. A spanner in the works.

“I feel like I can take all the bad luck that is thrown at me after all the good fortune I had last year. But, yeah, it’s frustrating because I was hoping to kind of build on it.”

After stunning the sporting world with her Flushing Meadows run, Raducanu was naturally one of the most-talked about athletes in the world and her stock rose considerably.

She signed several endorsement deals on the back of her success with some questioning whether or not she has lost focus.

Raducanu admits she is still coming to grips with life in the fast line, but she will eventually figure things out.

“Still trying to figure everything out and everything is still very new and it’s going to take a while to really settle into it,” she said.

“And I accept that it’s not going to be the smoothest ride and it’s going to be bumpy, but what can I do about it? I’ve kind of been put in a scenario that’s not really been done before and I’m trying to figure it out as I go along.”

Emma Raducanu

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