“I am very independent and I think now I’m actually just listening to myself and my intuition more,” says Emma Raducanu, smiling, from one of the few quiet corners of the vast, handsome Foro Italico complex in Rome. “For so long, I’ve had other opinions, I’ve tried to justify my gut feeling because my brain is very logical [and] I didn’t feel like I could just trust what I felt.”
Raducanu is speaking before her first-round appearance at the Italian Open, where she is still trying to figure out how to adapt her game to clay. Looking at the bigger picture of the 22-year-old’s career and life, she has reached an interesting inflection point.
