If there is anything that Emma Raducanu’s career since her US Open triumph has reinforced beyond doubt, it is just how difficult the day-to-day grind of life as a professional tennis player is. The physical load each week is considerable, injury niggles are so common that few players are ever functioning at 100% and only the strongest maintain their spot at the top.
For now, as expected, Raducanu has a long way to go. In the past week in Prague, her latest injury issues have been the blisters on her foot. A recap of how she has fared since the US Open is largely a long list of such setbacks. She endured illness in her final tournaments of 2021, her off-season was scuppered by Covid, blisters on her hand forced her to her hit one-handed backhand slices at the Australian Open, in February she had to retire in Monterrey after sustaining a hip injury and a stiff back followed in Indian Wells.
These are predictable obstacles for a player attempting to manage the physical demands of the top level despite barely even competing in the lower-level ITF tournaments, but they are also a common theme in Raducanu’s young career. Part of the reason why the 19-year-old had played so few events compared to her peers even before last year is because she would continually be sidelined by injury niggles.
Back at Wimbledon, Raducanu referred to the numerous small injuries she sustained that meant she could watch from the sidelines as her peers advanced up the rankings far more quickly than her. She described herself as a player who had “always been sort of held back by something”. Even as a grand slam title winner, that has not yet ceased.
“She is still young, she hasn’t completed a full year on tour yet,” said Anne Keothavong, the captain of Great Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup team in the Czech Republic. “For any young player going out there for the first time, what she has achieved has been exceptional.
“It does take time to get used to life on the tour and become more robust. She certainly needs to become more robust. That is no secret. She knows that. She is working on it.”
Still, there is ample optimism. In Prague, for instance, Raducanu dug deep to escape with a 7-5, 7-5 win against the No 50, Tereza Martincová, and record a first win in a clay-court match. While the frustration seemed to have taken a toll earlier in the year, Raducanu and her teammates seemed to really enjoy the team atmosphere and even if the quality is lacking compared to other nations, Keothavong has helped to cultivate a positive atmosphere.
Such is the nature of the tour, it stops for nobody. Raducanu was already straight on to a flight to Stuttgart in the morning for the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, one of the toughest WTA events of the season. The tournament boasts seven of the top nine players. Although it remains to be seen how her foot will hold up, Raducanu was in the draw on Sunday.
The past week was also notable for the absence of the Russian and Belarusian teams, the former team being the Billie Jean King Cup defending champions. As the tour continues to tick over, talks to determine whether the large contingent of Russian and Belarusian players will be allowed to compete at Wimbledon are still ongoing, said the Lawn Tennis Association chief executive, Scott Lloyd, in Prague.
“Conversations with the government and indeed their counterparts in other countries are still ongoing,” Lloyd said. “There is no definite position there, either. The government have given all sports guidance in terms of how we should try to work through some of these challenges, which range from a full ban to very robust declarations on behalf of individuals.
“We need to try to work through what the impact and implications of trying to implement that guidance looks like.
“This is something that we are working very closely with the All England Club on day-in, day-out right now.”
Players potentially affected include the US Open champion Daniil Medvedev, the two-times major champion Victoria Azarenka, Aryna Sabalenka and Andrey Rublev, who all currently compete as neutral individuals. Unlike other sports in Russia, the top-ranked tennis players employ their own individual teams, live abroad and are not funded by the Russian or Belarusian states.
“It is an enormously complex situation,” Lloyd said. “I think we are all aligned in finding the actions that we see in our papers and TV screens, it is absolutely abhorrent. In truth, the conversation is ongoing, we are in very close dialogue with the All England Club, the government, with the tours. We are very conscious of public sentiment in this area. We are trying to navigate what that needs to look like in the summer events in Britain this year.”
