Emma Raducanu outlines her ‘ultimate dream’ for when she returns to tennis

Tennis News

Ewan West
September 21, 2023

Emma Raducanu has revealed that her “ultimate dream” for when she is able to return to tennis from her injury nightmare is to win Wimbledon.

The 2021 US Open champion explained that winning her home Grand Slam tournament was her dream growing up and that this has never changed.

Raducanu has missed most of the 2023 season due to injury and underwent surgery on both her wrists and her ankle in May. She has played just 10 matches across five tournaments so far this year and has a 5-5 record.

The 20-year-old sustained an ankle injury which forced her to retire during her second round match in Auckland in January in her first event of the season. She then lost in the second round of the Australian Open to Coco Gauff, before next competing in Indian Wells almost two months later.

There, Raducanu achieved her best result of the year by winning three matches to reach the last 16, where she was beaten by Iga Swiatek. The Brit then lost in the opening round in Miami to Bianca Andreescu, before being beaten by Jelena Ostapenko in Stuttgart in April in her most recent match.

Speaking in an interview with BBC London, Raducanu stated that her biggest tennis dream has remained the same since she was a child.

“Wimbledon is the dream and always has been growing up. It’s still the ultimate dream to win Wimbledon,” divulged the current world No 214.

Raducanu made her major breakthrough by reaching the fourth round at the 2021 Wimbledon Championships as a wildcard. The Brit then stunned the sporting world later that year with her staggering triumph at the US Open – where she won the title as a qualifier without dropping a set.

In an interview with i last month, former world No 4 Tim Henman discussed what he felt a successful comeback season would look like for Raducanu.

“If she plays 22, 23 tournaments next year, that would be a great achievement, because the only way you’re going to do that is if you’re fit and healthy. If she’s fit and healthy, the results will come. She’s that good a player. She’s too good not to win matches,” said the former British No 1.

“No one as a professional athlete likes to be injured or wants to be injured. Having said that, I think this has been and will be a great opportunity to really build a foundation, and it’s really around physical resilience. She hasn’t had the opportunity to do the big, extended periods of physical training.

“Tennis ability is never going to be an issue but because of her journey, just being so unexpected coming out of Covid and playing at Wimbledon, with no real physical foundation, and then doing what she did in New York, she’s always been playing catch up.

“And so now having had the surgeries, which I believe have been a success, she can really put in the hard yards to build up that physicality for her then to be able to let her tennis do the talking.”

Emma Raducanu