British star player Emma Raducanu has shared some new photos from her training sessions at the LTA’s National Tennis Centre in London, and she is expecting that her preparations will soon be stepped up on American territory. The 2021 US Open winner has dropped to No.252 in the current WTA rankings, having missed much of last year due to injuries. The same leaves her relying on wildcards to enter the game’s major tournaments and Raducanu should receive those as a former Grand Slam champion.
Raducanu has a ‘protected ranking’ of No.103 as that was the point when the 21-year-old player stepped out of the game last year to undergo surgery on both ankles and her wrist, but that is insufficient to qualify her for the game’s biggest events. While Raducanu has shown flashes of top-level form since returning to the WTA Tour in Austria last month, she has struggled to string victories together and performed poorly in a 6-0, 7-6(6) loss to Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina in the Qatar Open’s first round earlier this month.
Raducanu revealed that she will reevaluate her schedule following that match, returning to the UK to practice rather than competing in the WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai, where she might have received a wildcard. I think that I need to kind of schedule my tournaments a bit better as well as just trying to get some more matches under my belt. I think that I’m just going to go home and practice and we’ll see where it goes from there, she expressed.
Raducanu is now waiting to see if she will be given a wildcard into the WTA 1000 event at Indian Wells next month. Despite her low ranking, which suggests she does not qualify for the 128-player draw, she is likely to be offered the opportunity to play in the Californian desert. She would also be likely to receive a wildcard into the Miami Open, which takes place the week following Indian Wells. Raducanu’s wildcards are likely to continue to flow as tournament organizers want to include her on their entry list since she is a terrific crowd draw, as evidenced by the filled stands for her two matches at the Australian Open last month.
Raducanu’s dilemma will be whether to accept offers to play against the game’s finest players or set her ambitions lower. She could compete in the WTA 125 event in Charleston or the San Luis Open in Mexico at the end of March, where she will face lower-ranked opponents and could win several matches.
