As Emma Raducanu acknowledged, winning the US Open as an 18-year-old qualifier was always going to set an extremely unfair level of expectations for an inexperienced player so early on in their career, with so much still to learn. But, four-and-a-half years after that night in New York, the British No 1 admitted the attempts to develop her game have not worked, that it’s time to take a step back, “re-evaluate”, and perhaps play more like she did when she was younger.
Raducanu’s second-round exit to Anastasia Potapova at the Australian Open followed a difficult off-season where the 23-year-old was limited by a foot injury. Making it to the start line in Melbourne, let alone playing five matches so far this season, she said, was pretty surprising. Raducanu said her foot has not been 100 per cent during the Australian Open and it will require further assessment once she returns home. Tricky court conditions, with a swirling wind around the grounds, didn’t help either.
