Emma Raducanu presented with glorious rankings opportunity at US Open
Emma Raducanu’s current WTA Ranking does not get her into the main draw for many of the game’s biggest tournaments, but she has a chance to solve that problem at the US Open.
Raducanu didn’t make it into the main draw at the W1000 events in Toronto and Cincinnati and she opted against playing in qualifying at the first of those two events, with that decision sparking a debate about her commitment to tennis.
The 2021 US Open champion has only played three matches on US hardcourts ahead of her first round match against Sofia Kenin at the US Open on Tuesay, but she insisted that lack of action was a choice she is comfortable with.
“I don’t think I will ever be the player who is playing close to 30 events a year,” said Raducanu.
“It is not my style – it never has been. When I was playing juniors even, I would just play a few tournaments, play the Slams and go to school.
“I have kind of always done it that way. Even when I won the US Open, I only played a few tournaments that year. Yes, they were closer together.
“I am not in any big rush to play loads. I would rather target tournaments and be ready to play the tournaments that I am entered in.”
Those comments will do little to banish the notion that Raducanu is ready to embrace playing what would considered to be a ‘regular’ schedule for a WTA Tour player and if she continues to play such a limited number of events, she will struggle to get her ranking into a position that will get her into elite tournaments.
It also piled the pressure on Raducanu to pick up ranking points in the limited tournaments she is playing and she has a chance to make a rankings breakthrough at the US Open.
Raducanu is up to No 67 in the live WTA Rankings and a win against Kenin will take her close to the top 50, which would open the door to more WTA Tour events.
She may need to beat Jessica Pegula in round two if she gets that far and a win against the world No 6 in New York would give Raducanu a chance to build momentum and get a big haul of ranking points in New York.
As she missed the US Open due to injury last year, Raducanu has no ranking points to defend over the next couple of weeks and that will give her a chance to make real progress in the rankings.
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Losing early at the US Open could give Raducanu some real concerns as she will not be high enough in the updated rankings to enter major tournaments for the rest of 2024, with tennis legend John McEnroe confused by her form in recent months.
“Sometimes I see her and it looks like she is heading back towards the top of the game and then other times I’m a bit befuddled about what’s going on,” McEnroe told Tennis365 at a Eurosport event.
“I’m not close to her team and what is going on, but I hope she is healthy.
“There were a couple of matches at Wimbledon and she looked really good and then in the last one, she looked really shaky.
“It’s hard to know what to say about her. I don’t really know.
“She is certainly in a better space and healthier than she was a year ago, so that’s good, but I don’t know where she is mentally.
“Does she have that absolute belief and commitment to win something big again or be in the top ten? That I can’t say.”
If Raducanu could match her run to the fourth round at Wimbledon last month by making it through to the same stage of the US Open, she would leap to the high 40s in the updated WTA Rankings after the final major of the year.
A quarter-final appearance would see her comfortable return to a ranking that would secure her return to WTA 1000 events without the need to play in qualifying.
If Raducanu repeated her incredible US Open win from three years ago, she would be comfortably back in the top 20 of the WTA Rankings, but that is would appear to be highly unlikely given her lack of matches heading into this tournament.
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