How Emma Raducanu can use every trick in the book to match game’s big hitters
By most standards, the year Emma Raducanu has enjoyed would be considered successful.
Wins in all for Grand Slams and runs to quarter-finals of WTA 500 tournaments is a good effort for a player who ended 2023 ranked at around 300 in the world and could end 2025 back in the top 20.
With her on court prize money closing in on $1.5m for this year, Raducanu’s accomplishments are evidence of the huge progress she has made it what has to be seen as the second coming of the 2021 US Open champion.
The player who shocked the world and won a Grand Slam after coming through qualifying four years ago was a raw girl who couldn’t quite believe what she had done and backing that up proved to be beyond her.
Now it feels like 22-year-old Raducanu is ready to mix it at the top end of women’s tennis again, but she has come up short against players who hit a bigger ball than her.
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She has played two highly competitive matches against world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka at Wimbledon and in Cincinnati, but her clashes with Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina have exposed an enduring problem that will be hard to resolve.
Against opponents who have more firepower in their serves and ground shots, Raducanu has been blown away in a manner that is more than a little deflating.
Swiatek hammered Raducanu at the Australian Open and French Open this year and just when it appeared the Brit was gathering momentum on her favourite US hard courts, she was dismissed in equally convincing fashion by Rybakina at the US Open.
“I think when the very top players play against me, they have a point to prove that they’re at the top, and they’re there for a reason,” said Raducanu after the Rybakina defeat.
“I think every time I’ve played one, they’ve kind of shown that. So while I’m improving, doing better, gaining maybe some more respect around, I think the top have definitely raised their game.
“Developing my serve is important – it has got better but I think it can be even better.
“The ball after the serve as well, so I’m ready for a fast return, that’s where I have some big work to do.
“Once I’m in the rally I feel OK, but against Elena, I barely felt I was in a rally. Starting the point is extremely important at that level.”
Raducanu’s serve has improved impressively in 2025 and her first serve percentages in her opening two matches at the US Open confirmed she is making progress, but that serving power and accuracy was not there when the pressure was on against Rybakina at the US Open.
Her new coach, Francisco Roig, appears to have made a positive impact in his first few weeks with Raducanu and while the serve and especially the power she generates on it is an area to target, her ground shots also need to have more pop to challenge the top players.
All too often, Raducanu is rushed and on the back foot when she plays Sabalenka, Swiatek and Rybakina and while most in the game also have the same problem against those three, Raducanu doesn’t seem to have any answers.
She needs to rip a page from the Coco Gauff game plan as the American has found a way to fight fire with fire against the big hitters, even though she has huge problems with her own serve and forehand.
Tennis365 understand that Raducanu has been experimenting with different strings and tensions in her racket over the course of 2025, with her former coach Mark Petchey accepting she needs more firepower in rallies.
“We’re in an era of big hitters. We talk about the pace of shots, from both Sabalenka and Anisimova,” said Petchey.
“From Emma’s point of view her best style of winning matches is up on the baseline redirecting the ball, moving it around, trying to get the opponent to move before they get a chance to set on the ball. That’s obviously something that she’s going to have to keep getting better at.”
It’s far from being a gloomy picture for Raducanu after a year when she has served up so many impressive performances and made such huge strides forward.
Now we wait to see if she can find the key to not only get back into the top 10 of the WTA Rankings, but challenge the genuine title contenders when she gets on court with them.
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