Emma Raducanu warns that her return is still in its early stages as she prepares for the Australian Open, but she believes she has finally shed some of the mental pressure following her remarkable Grand Slam triumph at Flushing Meadows. The 21-year-old surprised the tennis world by winning the 2021 U.S. Open as a teenage qualifier, but she has since struggled to meet the expectations set by that incredible achievement.
After undergoing operations on both wrists and an ankle, Raducanu was sidelined for nearly eight months. She played two matches as a wildcard in Auckland last week, winning one and losing one in a tight three-setter, which convinced her that she was on the right path.
“I feel good physically,” she told reporters on Friday. “But I think that regardless of how good I may feel on the court on a particular day or in practice, I think to get that level of consistency is going to require more time.”
“I know my level is there, I just need to keep working on it to make it more consistent. I think that will come with time in the gym, time on court, being able to play the calendar, not thinking about, ‘Will I have to pull out from this one? Does that hurt?’. I think my level, to be honest, is just too good not to come through if I put consistent work together.”
Raducanu said she has a new appreciation of life as an athlete after spending so much time incapacitated after the surgeries. “For a period of time, I had a scooter to move around. I couldn’t text, anything,” she recalled. “It just puts things into perspective. The feeling of not being able to move your body, like to walk to the kitchen to get a snack, for example, I couldn’t do it. And you miss it.”
Raducanu’s opening match at Melbourne Park is against Shelby Rogers, the American she beat in the fourth round on her unexpected run to the 2021 U.S. Open final.
Raducanu’s quick rise to stardom, particularly representing a country that had not seen success in women’s Grand Slam tennis for a long time, inevitably resulted in a significant amount of pressure being placed on her shoulders. But she feels she has now relieved some of that burden.
“I feel a lot lighter now than I did for a long time after the U.S. Open. I feel like I’m not playing with a backpack of rocks,” she added. “I feel pretty light and happy.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
