The last four years have been strange for Emma Raducanu. On one hand, she has long been trying to recapture the form of her breakthrough season, when she reached the fourth round at Wimbledon before sealing a stunning victory at the US Open. On the other hand, she has been trying to distance herself from that 2021 campaign, and the consensus among many in the tennis world is that the 22-year-old should not be held to those standards.
Yet it was difficult to put that captivating first appearance in SW19 out of the mind when, on Wednesday, the Briton stood across from Marketa Vondrousova in the second round – the same player she beat at the same stage, four years ago.
