How Emma Raducanu can ensure her WTA ranking does not collapse in the next month

Emma Raducanu

Emma Raducanu is preparing for a huge month, as she counts down to the defence of her US Open crown and looks to defend the 2040 WTA ranking points she collected from her historic win in New York last year.

Raducanu stunned the sporting world as she became the first player to come through qualifying and win a Grand Slam title, with her ten straight wins at Flushing Meadows instantly transforming her into a global superstar.

The 19-year-old Brit has struggled to back up that win with successes in her first full year on the WTA Tour and it means she could drop out the top 100 of the rankings unless she has a good month in America.

She currently has 2717 ranking points and sits in a lofty 10th place in the rankings, but 2040 if those points will disappear once the US Open beings at the end of August.

So it is crucial for Raducanu to make the most of the tournaments she will play in before she returns to New York, with her debut in the Citi Open in Washington next week offering he a chance to collect up to 250 ranking points.

Then she will play in the Canadian and Cincinnati Masters events, where 2000 ranking points are there for the taking, before starting her US Open defence and trying to collect up to 2000 more ranking points.

After a second round exit at Wimbledon and uncertainty around her form and fitness in 2022, Raducanu could be set for a rankings plummet in August.

Yet she also has an opportunity to kick-start her season and finish her time iN America with more points than she started with if she finds her form once more on her favoured hard courts.

“I am looking forward to going into the hard-court season because all of the tournaments leading up are brand new to me,” said Raducanu.

“It’s my first time playing them and they’re all really good and big tournaments. So it will be great to just get experience at each of those.

“I’m probably a bit light on matches but it’s a great place to start building and start working on, and whatever happens you’ll see ‘oh okay, I need to do this better’ and just adjust week to week. And then hopefully at the US Open you’ll have a better understanding of where your game’s at.

“Match practice and then a real match is different because it’s a different level of nerves and a different level of feeling on the court, especially when you haven’t played in a long time. So I think that definitely takes adjusting to.

“Sometimes when you play a lot of matches in a row, and something that I experienced at the US Open, where I played so many matches that everything felt like I was on autopilot. A lot of the time you just don’t know what you’re doing in a way, but you just have this really good confidence that you can be a break down, a break point down, but you just know you’ll find a way back.

“That’s something for sure I’d say comes with a lot of matches and is tough to find if you’re a bit in and out.”

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