As far as weekends go, it couldn’t have gone much worse for Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon, as she crashed out of the last 16 in a nightmare.
The British tennis star had been enjoying a remarkable resurgence and marked one of the biggest wins of her entire career on Friday, defeating a top 10 player for only the second time to equal her best run ever at the Championships.
That came against world No.9 Maria Sakkari – nine days after beating the world No.5 – and it set up a battle with world No.123 qualifier Lulu Sun, who Raducanu should’ve breezed past given her obvious ability to trump much better players.
Toppling Sun would’ve meant Raducanu’s first Grand Slam quarter-final since her US Open triumph in 2021. The Brit would’ve played an unseeded opponent in the last eight and avoided Coco Gauff in the semi-finals. It was a massive opportunity.
Playing some of the best tennis of her career – and with no Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka or Ons Jabeur left – she had become a real contender for the title. But Sunday’s costly loss meant it all came to a brutal end for the British wildcard.
Heading into the match, Raducanu warned that Sun was ‘extremely dangerous’ and that facing qualifiers can be sometimes more daunting than the top players. That’s exactly how it panned out, as she only managed to conjure up 19 winners in comparison to her opponent’s 52. It was a pretty poor overall performance.
Raducanu’s serving was way off her usual best – with her percentage of first-serve points plummeting from 72 to 54. New Zealand’s Sun dominated at the net, too.
‘She was very aggressive,’ Raducanu said after her loss. ‘I think playing a lefty is challenging. It’s something that I haven’t really played against or trained against. I think that going forward, it’s something I probably need to incorporate more.
‘My serve [has] got better. I think I need to just work on the consistency of it, like being good every day not just like some days.’
Perhaps more worrying for Raducanu as that she was struggling with pain in three different areas – her right wrist, her lower left leg and the middle of her back. In the deciding set against Sun, she took a tumble and required medical treatment.
For Raducanu to fully get her career back on track and one day return to the world top 10 – where she was ranked two years ago – she needs to do everything she can to avoid these niggling injuries and maintain her full fitness in future. It’s exactly what has been holding her back ever since her fairytale in New York.
‘I’ve been managing a stiff back,’ Raducanu added. ‘I think it was just exaggerated today, I’d say. I was feeling it during the match. I think especially on serve it was affecting me a bit.
‘I woke up yesterday with a bit of stiff wrist [too]. With the balls being quite heavy in the grass, it’s just something that I have to manage. I was feeling fine, then yesterday morning just woke up with stiffness.’
Raducanu happy with fourth-round run
‘I mean, I beat two top-10 players within two weeks, which is a pretty big deal for me, seeing as the whole US Open even I didn’t play one top-10 player,’ Raducanu said about her superb form on the grass this year.
‘I think I have to take confidence from that. Six months ago when I was starting out after surgery, I would have signed for fourth round at Wimbledon. Of course I’m disappointed. Of course I want more. I think everything does happen for a reason. It just, yeah, fuels the fire and makes me more hungry.’
Things had started to go wrong the second Raducanu made the controversial decision to pull out of mixed doubles with Andy Murray on Saturday, robbing him of at least one last match in SW19.
That came in the afternoon – the same day as their scheduled first-round match – and it attracted plenty of criticism, even if Raducanu blamed ‘stiffness’ in her right wrist and was perhaps right to focus on singles given her injury history.
Unfortunately for Raducanu, that’s not what fans are going to remember. They’re not going to recall her run to the last 16 of Wimbledon. What they will remember is her huge decision to pull out of the mixed doubles with British legend Murray.
‘I stand by the decision,’ Raducanu insists. ‘It was a very difficult decision. Of course, I didn’t want to take his last match away from him. But at the end of the day I think a lot of the players in a similar situation would have done the same thing, prioritising their body.
‘I think that hopefully he’ll play in the Olympics and have another farewell there. I don’t think I would have done it any other way. I think in this sport especially, as an individual, you have to make your own calls and prioritse yourself. Especially with my history, I just had to put myself first.’
Did she make the right call? This is the question that will now be asked, especially if she never gets her hands on the Venus Rosewater Dish. Arguably, the 21-year-old must win Wimbledon at some point in her career to change that narrative.
For now, though, Raducanu is preparing for the hard-court season. Her focus will now be on the US Open, where she sensationally tasted Grand Slam glory as a qualifier three years ago. Ironically, it’s what Sun is looking to repeat in SW19.
‘I’m going to go to the States, start in [Washington] D.C., and get on the hard courts,’ Raducanu added. ‘I think I’ll take a few days off just to freshen up with the body, freshen up. Obviously it’s an intense period on the grass.
‘I feel good about things going forwards. I feel optimistic. I think that today, as bitter as it is to take, I think it happened for a reason. You don’t want things to happen too easily and too quickly.
‘Well, I had that before. I don’t necessarily want just a massive spike (smiling). I think I’m just working there, tracking in the right direction. Yeah, I’ll just start off in D.C. and go from there.’