JO DURIE: It could take Emma Raducanu a year to compete at this level
JO DURIE: It could take Emma Raducanu a year to compete at this level… rivals will target her and she faces the weight of expectation
- Emma Raducanu has a target on her back now she’s a Grand Slam winner
- The British No 1 has risen to superstardom quickly but life is tougher at the top
- Coaches will have studied Raducanu’s game and rivals will be sharing their tips
Emma Raducanu could find the senior tour difficult this year, especially in the first six months. She is now No 18 in the world and will be competing regularly against players around her ranking and higher.
Opponents will be gunning for her because she’s a Grand Slam champion. Coaches will have studied her game and in the locker room rivals will be sharing tips on how best to play her.
I went through a similar experience when I broke into the world’s top five in 1984. It was tough. It took me about a year to get used to players raising their game, attacking me in a way they wouldn’t have previously and playing with fewer inhibitions because they had less to lose.
Emma Raducanu could find the senior tour difficult this year, especially in the first six months
You find yourself playing more defensively as a result. At times you tense up. However hard you try not to put pressure on yourself, you can’t help feel it and end up playing yourself as well as the opponent.
Sloane Stephens, Emma’s first-round opponent in Melbourne, warned of the emotional comedown that follows your maiden Grand Slam victory — especially if it was unexpected, as was the case with Sloane’s US Open win in 2017. She also discussed the weight of expectation on Emma, following her wonderful US Open win last September. She will be carrying the hopes of a country from now on.
That should not be underestimated. I played immediately after an era when Sue Barker and Virginia Wade won Slams for Britain. As someone who went close to emulating them without ever quite managing it, I always felt that I was considered not quite good enough.
In Emma’s case, there is the risk that the public will look on anything less than another title as a disappointment. But we should be realistic and look to the example of other recent teenage Slam winners. Jelena Ostapenko struggled to maintain her form after her 2017 win in Paris. Likewise Bianca Andreescu following her US Open triumph in 2019.
Opponents will be gunning for her this year because she is now a Grand Slam champion
Iga Swiatek played superbly to win the French Open two years ago but has admitted that she felt restricted in her performances afterwards and that she has only recently returned to playing at her aggressive best. Plus there are a lot of women on tour playing very good tennis now, making it difficult for anyone to sustain a winning run at the top.
I was surprised that Emma split with her coach Andrew Richardson so soon after the US Open. She has always changed coaches fairly quickly and it has served her well. Yet she seemed so comfortable with Andrew and the team who supported her there. And that it is important.
Torben Beltz, her new coach, is experienced but it takes a long time for a player to get to know a coach. You need to be able to share your biggest concerns and it can take months to get to that point.
Emma is strong-minded and knows what she wants. But you wonder if this was the best time to throw another ingredient into the mix.
I think Emma will have done really well to retain her place in the top 20 by the end of the year. She is sensible. She works hard and you hope she can manage the new experiences ahead of her, especially the level of media attention.
The physical demands will be intense too. There is no let-up on the senior tour. You need to commit to a certain number of tournaments to satisfy the event sponsors. After Australia, Emma will probably go to the US for Indian Wells and the Miami Open. Then she will be building up to Roland Garros.
Yet Emma has barely played the senior WTA Tour. She debuted on it only last June. The US Open is her only senior title. She is going from one tournament to the next packed with top players. It could take her a full season to acclimatise and I suspect she might need to drop down a level to the ITF Tour or WTA 125 events to pick up some wins and get into her groove. If I was coaching an opponent of Emma’s I would encourage them to get her moving around the court, trying to disrupt her rhythm and prevent her from dominating with her forehand.
But I would not read too much into her defeat in Melbourne. She lost heavily, but her opponent Elena Rybakina had been in great form and Emma was coming out of isolation in Abu Dhabi.
She had also just arrived in Australia and Emma, I think, is a player who needs to be out on the practice court. She needs to feel the ball and find her timing, as she did brilliantly at Flushing Meadows. I hope she gets to that place this week. She will certainly need to: Stephens is an extremely dangerous opponent.
In the men’s draw, Andy Murray’s form is astonishing and I say that as someone who has had both hips replaced — as well as both my knees! That was the price I paid for my career. I honestly don’t know how Andy keeps reaching that level at his age and with a metal hip. Last season he showed signs of playing well, but invariably followed a good win with defeat.
In reaching the final in Sydney this weekend, the signs suggested that he has found some consistency. It is almost as if the operation has given him a new lease of life, a fresh target to aim for.
It is a shame that his run has been overshadowed by the Novak Djokovic situation. Everyone in the tennis community has been talking about it and there aren’t many people who are supportive of him. Clearly it has not been handled well by the authorities, but people want to know why Djokovic even tried to get into Australia when he wasn’t vaccinated.
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