As the players settled in Madrid for the fourth ATP Masters 1000 event of the season, one competitor was extremely unsettled. In her pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday, Emma Raducanu entered the room determined to keep every response as short as possible. One-word answers were preferred. Her day’s work came in at 58 words. Eventually, the moderator recognised the futility of continuing and aborted her media briefing.
The spectacle was concerning. The past 18 months have been difficult for various reasons and Britain’s young hope has become increasingly guarded, but the positive perspective she had tried to exude in public for much of this period was gone.
It came as no surprise when, less than 24 hours later, Raducanu withdrew from the Madrid Open due to her continuing wrist problem.
The task of following up her 2021 US Open victory was always going to be extremely difficult, but Raducanu’s inability to stay fit has probably been even more dispiriting than merely performing poorly.
Last season, a new injury or ailment seemed to spring up every other week and scupper any modest momentum she had succeeded in building. It ended with her prematurely finishing her season.
This year, she sprained an ankle in her first tournament and, just as that injury abated, her wrist deteriorated again.
Raducanu’s frail body had been the story of her career even before the summer of 2021. She has never been able to remain fit for an extended period. Her junior career was also stop-start, filled with continuous niggles that kept her out of action and limited the impact she could make.
She was so untested and inexperienced in 2021 compared with her contemporaries because her body had limited her schedule and contributed to her decision to take an extended period away and focus on her A-levels after the Covid hiatus.
“She was picking up a lot of little niggles,” Matt James, a coach who worked with Raducanu between 2018 and 2020, told the Guardian in 2021. “She wouldn’t really go back-to-back in a tournament. If she went quite far in a tournament, it would be quite tough for her to back it up.”
The difference between then and now is that Raducanu would make remarkable progress when she was fit. But now she is competing at the very top level of the sport where matches are more physically demanding and more frequent, and opponents pounce on the smallest hint of weakness.
Meanwhile, with the added weight of being a grand slam champion, the days of being able to swing freely without worries or inhibitions are long gone. There is no substitute for being able to train, compete and progress for an extended period without physical concerns.
With every new problem, Raducanu’s achievements in 2021 seem even more remarkable in hindsight. It is clear her body was not even close to being prepared for the physical challenges of elite tennis, yet she managed to play 10 matches in three weeks at the US Open and win them all in straight sets, her main physical ailment a small graze to her knee sustained in the final.
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While Raducanu initially seemed unprepared for the work it would take to be physically ready for the tour, she has clearly tried to address her weaknesses. She hired Jez Green, Andy Murray’s former fitness coach, to help her build a body to withstand the physical challenges of tennis, and she previously spoke gleefully about spending more time in the gym than ever before.
Although her decisions on coaches have come under scrutiny and the split with Andrew Richardson after the US Open was widely considered a decision that created further uncertainty at a turbulent time, she seems to have found stability with her current coach, Sebastian Sachs.
A year ago in Madrid, Raducanu enjoyed a positive run to the third round. As a result of her withdrawal this year, she will fall out of the world’s top 100. Raducanu may well lose her British No 1 status and she is now on the verge of requiring a wildcard to compete at Wimbledon.
There is still so much time in her career, and many greater players have shown that it takes time to get their mind and body right. Still, her new three-figure ranking is a sobering sign of her struggles.
Significant decisions must be made in the coming days and weeks. Raducanu may choose to continue managing her injuries by soldiering on, competing in Rome in 10 days and then heading to the French Open. Another option would be to take a step back and try to return in the British grasscourt season with body and mind in a slightly better place.
Regardless of the choice she makes, the looming question, as ever, is whether another problem will be waiting around the corner.