British No 1 Emma Raducanu has been warned against ‘overtraining’ as she continues to adapt to the rigours of the WTA Tour.
Laura Robson, a former British No 1 who knows all too well about the impact of injuries, dismissed Raducanu’s injury woes across the last 12 months as anything out of the ordinary for a young player but did accept there is a danger of overtraining in a bid to build the body up..
Raducanu heads into her first round Australian Open match against Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch with her left ankle strapped after her preparations were blighted from a strain picked up in Auckland, where she left the court in tears.
Emma Raducanu’s focus must be on perfecting ‘art form’ of staying healthy, says Laura Robson
Raducanu received attention from a trainer in Auckland, but retired at the start of the third set
But Robson knows being healthy consistently is its own ‘art form’ and she wants more patience afforded to Raducanu in figuring that out.
‘It’s just about getting used to playing that level of intensity every week, and we see it a lot,’ Robson, speaking ahead of the Australian Open, which is live and exclusive on discovery+ and Eurosport, told Sportsmail.
‘When I’m doing commentary, the lower rank players will come out and win the first set, but just can’t sustain that energy across a three-hour battle. So just getting used to that, getting better at being able to adapt in the moment. It’s something that you only learn through years on tour and experience, which is what she’s trying to put together this year.’
She added: ‘Being able to stay healthy is its own art form. And finding that, again, it’s a balance of training, not overtraining, being in the gym, doing enough rehab and physio work for it all to come together.
Robson, a former British No 1, saw her career ended prematurely due to issues with injuries
‘That’s something that also takes a bit of time to get right because you don’t know what your limits are. Especially when this is her first full year on the tour. So it’s like finding what days between the tournament do you recover? Should you take it bit easier? What day should you push a bit more? And it’s all things that you don’t know until you’ve done it a couple of times.’
Raducanu, who has Andy Murray’s former fitness guru Jez Green as a part-time consultant, along with her most trusted physio, Will Herbert, in Australia with her, has picked up eight injuries since going down at the Guadalajara Open with a hip problem in February last year.
An undisclosed issue took her out of the Monterrey Open in the same month; a back problem ruled her out in Italy; a side strain forced her from events in Nottingham and Eastbourne; a glute strain put paid to her involvement in the Korea Open; a wrist issue was the problem at the Transylvania Open and the Guadalajara Open in October, before the ankle strain in Auckland this month.
Nonetheless, Raducanu looked sharp having had a completed off-season – last year it was wrecked by her getting Covid – and Robson is more confident than ever that the 20-year-old can go on to establish herself in the top 10 of the women’s rankings.
‘You look at some of the players who are in the top 10 consistently, making finals and stuff, and I feel like that’s where she can eventually get to for sure, but it’s going to take some time,’ Robson said.
Raducanu looked sharp in the off-season but saw Australian Open build-up hit by an injury
Raducanu takes a break during practice before facing Tamara Korpatsch on January 16
‘If people are thinking that she’s going to go into every tournament and win it then they don’t know women’s tennis.’
Murray last year advised Raducanu that she needs to find a coach she can stick with for the long-term, having gone through five in the past year-and-a-half.
The 20-year-old is now reportedly working with Sebastian Sachs and Robson believes finding the right fit from a ‘carousel’ of coaches is far harder than most people come to realise.
‘It’s whether you’re trying to stick it out with someone who you aren’t gelling with. I don’t think that makes very much sense,’ she said.
‘So it’s just about finding that right person, and sometimes you find them straight away. It’s honestly, like any relationship that coach-player relationship is, it’s so difficult to get right. You see people who’ve had the same coach for 10 years, but it happens so rarely, especially on the women’s tour.
‘So I kind of think, if you need to keep changing until you get the right fit, then why not.
The 2021 US Open winner was all smiles as appeared to be making progress Thursday
‘It’s about finding the balance of someone who you respect and listen to on the court, but you just spend so much time together off the court. I’ve heard that people can separate the two and just kind of meet each other on court and then not really hang out other than that, but I haven’t found that in my career anyway, that it’s possible.
‘You’re travelling together, you’re, you know, setting up for matches together, you have to sit down and talk, talk about tennis pretty much constantly in order to improve so, it’s, it’s a tricky thing to get right. And sometimes you just don’t gel with people in the same way that in an office you wouldn’t.’
Watch every match from the Australian Open live and exclusive on discovery+ and Eurosport