by Another three game series, another medical crisis. Were we back to square one with Emma Raducanu back from injury?
Thank God, the answer is no. The doctor only came to deal with nausea and vomiting Raducanu, without offering strapping on any muscle pressure. Indeed, Raducanu later identified no fitness concerns as the biggest positive of her four-week trip to Australia and New Zealand.
“The exciting thing is that even though I played two goals with three cornerbacks in Auckland, three setters today, I didn’t come up with any random niggles,” Raducanu said. “[Today] it just threw me up. Nicely. That’s not normal, but it’s a one-off.”
Raducanu was moving very gingerly between points until his 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 defeat at the hands of the super strong Chinese player Yafan Wang. However, she produced some impressive tennis at times, especially during a second set period when her forehand lit up.
A feature of this competition was too many long rallies. There were no fewer than 47 points that lasted more than nine shots. Perhaps that is why Raducanu – who has had precious few games since returning from a nine-month injury – started to look fast early in the second set.
About an hour later – which moved to one set, so slowly did the scoreboard inch forward – she called the doctor to the court. But she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. In the end, the game lasted 2 hours 54 minutes and will give her plenty of useful feedback for the next step in her comeback.
“[It’s about] cleaning some of the fields, cleaning a bit of technique, getting used to playing games outside as well, because the conditions were very windy today,” said Raducanu. “I think she handled it a lot better, wind. She junk-balled me. She made me over the moon. She gave me a lot of these little shots, but it worked. Yes, I need to spend more time on tour, spend more time training, and putting together good weeks.
“I’m really looking forward to it because there were doubts that I would be able to make the Australian Open tour. I think it’s an advantage to be here, a good starting point I would say because I started having good practice sessions with Nick [Cavaday, her latest coaching appointment].”
Raducanu must have felt like she was looking in a mirror on Thursday, as she engaged in a neat, fleet-footed battle with a high ball and an impeccable backhand wing. Both women were trying to build smart patterns in rallies that resembled athletic chess.
It was Wang, however, who had the more resilient physicality. At the end of this marathon encounter, Raducanu tried to drive the ball directly at his opponent from short range, hit the net, and went out of the Australian Open. She has yet to reach the third round of a major since winning the US Open.
Despite her early departure, her old mentor Tim Henman (who was courtside during her run to the 2021 US Open title) praised Raducanu’s performance.
“I think [her] The level was great when she won the second set,” Henman said on Eurosport’s coverage of the Australian Open. “You thought she would have the momentum, but Wang is a great competitor. [There was] plenty to build on. She’ll be disappointed she couldn’t find a way through that game, but you’d think if there’s no injuries, you won’t have those struggles and she can build momentum for the rest. the years.
“In the first part of the third set they had a couple of really long games,” Henman added. “That’s when she was down 0-2, and the doctor and the physio came on. He looked worried by this time and I thought maybe she was looking for the way out, trying to pull out, but she kept fighting well.”
Raducanu told reporters after the game that she identified certain areas where playing “five percent better makes a big difference”. It is certainly the main hand among these, his forehand, which has emerged and grown over the course of the three sets. When she was on, he gave a punch and plenty of sharp cross-court angles. When she was off, he kept floating long.
As Raducanu pointed out, however, Wang came in with far more match experience behind her: specifically, she recorded 520 matches to her 142. the competition. Now she doesn’t have to go out there on the court more regularly. If she did, her regular diet of three-series dramas might start to turn into simple wins.
