With her US Open title in 2021, Emma Raducanu became a shooting star, a year later she failed early. The reasons for that are complex.
A year ago, Emma Raducanu had the tennis world at her feet. The Briton was just 18 years old when she sensationally stormed to the title at the US Open – as a qualifier, which no one had ever done at a Grand Slam tournament before. In a sensational final, she defeated Leylah Fernandez from Canada, only a good two months older and also surprisingly stormed into the final, 6:4, 6:3.
Raducanu impressed with fearless power tennis and balls taken extremely early. She gave her opponents no time to find their way into the game. In her ten matches, including qualification, she didn’t lose a single set and didn’t even need a tie-break.
World rankings fall to 80th place
The euphoria was great, but warning voices were also raised early on. For example, Pram Shriver, former world number three, said she doesn’t think Raducanu will still be in the top 20 by the end of 2022.
The American should be right: Raducanu lost a huge pile of world ranking points after her first round in New York against Alizé Cornet (3: 6, 3: 6) and will fall from 11th place to 80th place. Since her triumph in September 2021 three quarter-final appearances at WTA tournaments her greatest successes. Otherwise, it was always an early end, and there was little evidence of the impact of the US Open performances.
Brief cooperation with Torben Beltz
Shriver justified her skepticism that way. “It was such a sudden, unnatural step from qualifying to winning a Major – never done before – followed by all these new business partnerships, recognition and coaching changes. I feel like everything else around them has changed, and as As a teenager you go through a lot of changes.”
The companies clamored for the young woman with glamor potential, Raducanu’s Instagram channel is full of advertising messages. She also separated from coach andrew richardson, with whom she had worked since she was eleven. She hired Torben Beltz, Angelique Kerber’s longtime successful coach – and parted ways with him five months later. She wants to try a flexible model with different trainers for different surfaces. The yield so far is manageable.
Covid-19 and injuries
It may be that the hustle and bustle and the many commercial shoots slowed down Raducanu’s development. But there are other explanations as well. A Covid-19 illness interrupted the pre-season, which is difficult to make up for in the course of the season. Minor but protracted injuries followed, meaning that Raducanu often had to start in tournaments without adequate training, for example in Wimbledon. And that in her first full year on the WTA tour, in which she had to adapt to new surfaces and exhausting travel, both physically and mentally.
Recently, there has also been a certain upward trend: In Cincinnati, Raducanu clearly beat the old champions Serena Williams (6: 4, 6: 0) and Victoria Asarenka (6: 0, 6: 2) – Asarenka is still number 22 in the world. And her first-round draw at the US Open couldn’t have been more difficult. Alizé Cornet is number 40 in the world, very experienced at 32 and plays smart, awkward tennis. In Wimbledon she had surprisingly thrown the world number one Iga Swiatek out of the tournament.
Raducanu: “Not a bad year”
And so Raducanu drew a conciliatory conclusion after her loss against Cornet. “Considering I’m 19 years old I haven’t had a bad year. To be in the top 100 – if you’d told me that a year ago I would have taken it. But I think it would be nice just by to start over, to start over.”
Leylah Fernandez one lap further
Incidentally, Leylah Fernandez, Raducanu’s opponent in the final a year ago, was also unable to maintain the high level of the US Open at the time. But at least she won the WTA tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, in February and made it to the quarterfinals at the French Open. And now at the US Open she survived the first round with a 6:3, 6:4 against the French Oceane Dodin.