Emma Raducanu refused to be too critical of herself after crashing out in the second round of the Australian Open because of her injury-ravaged preparation for the tournament. The British 28th seed had been hoping to set up another meeting with world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka but she faded from a promising position and fell to a 7-6 (3), 6-2 defeat against Anastasia Potapova.
“I don’t want to give myself too much of a hard time because I know my preparation going into this tournament,” she said. “I have to leave with my head held high because of the matches I’ve had here. I didn’t even know at the beginning if I would be coming to Australia, so it’s a positive in that sense.”
Raducanu started well against the world No 55, establishing a 5-3 lead, but was never comfortable in windy conditions. “It was one of those – you’re 5-3 up, but you’re not feeling particularly good, and you’re trying to tough out every point however you can,” said the 23-year-old. “It’s not the way that I want to really be playing. It got me in the lead. I just didn’t feel like I could scrap the whole match.”
In what has become a recurring theme, Raducanu’s preparations for a grand slam tournament were hurt by physical problems. She struggled with a foot injury throughout the off-season and only began working through intensive drills days before her first match of the season. “If you would have told me I would have played four or five matches in Australia regardless of how they went, from a physical perspective, it would have been pretty surprising,” she said.
Raducanu is next scheduled to compete in Cluj, Romania, a WTA 250 event that begins on 1 February, but she says her primary goal now is to re-evaluate her game and rediscover her identity on the court. “At the end of the day, I just want to hit the ball to the corners and hard,” she said. “I’m doing all this variety, and it’s not doing what I want it to do. I need to just work on playing in a way more similar to how I was playing when I was younger.”
