Radukana is not expected to play again this year while she recovers from wrist and ankle surgery. Photo: GETTY IMAGES/Robert Prange
Emma Raducanou spoke about her “cruel” experience on the tennis tour after winning the US Open and said, “There are a lot of sharks.”
In her first real confession of her Wrestling In the 21 months since she set New York on fire, Radukan admitted that sometimes she wishes she never won the title.
“When I won, I was very naive,” Radukan told The Sunday Times. “What I've learned over the past two years, touring and everything that comes with it, is not a very pleasant, trusting and safe space. You have to be on the lookout because there are a lot of sharks out there. I think people in the industry, especially with me because I was 19 and now 20, they see me as a piggy bank. It was difficult to navigate. I got burned a few times. I've learned that your circle should be as small as possible.”
Speaking during a fashion photo shoot, Radukanu said her current absence from the tour, which could last until the end of the season, while she recovers from a wrist injury and her ankle surgery will give her the opportunity to rethink her goals and expectations.
“I don’t think it’s bad for the psyche to take a break, reboot and get really hungry again,” she said. She also explained that the memories of September 11, 2021 still inspire her to remember the positive aspects of this extremely difficult sport.
“At that moment on the court, when I was celebrating, I thought I would literally trade any fight in the world for this moment,” she said. “Anything can happen on my way, I will take it for what I have right now. I promised myself that that day on the court. Since then I have had many failures, one after another. I'm tough, my tolerance is high, but it's not easy. And sometimes I think to myself that I would have never won the US Open if it hadn't happened. Then I'm like this: remember that feeling, remember that promise, because it was completely pure.”
Since that night, Radukan's anguish has been well documented by every British news outlet: five departed coaches, high-profile commercial commitments, physical ailments .
“I didn't want to be seen as weak.”
She explained how difficult it was for her to deal with the public attention, especially when her body constantly denied her the ability to perform at her optimum level. After the 2021 US Open, she withdrew from five matches due to injury. And even when she was able to continue, she had chronic pain in her wrists.
“Pain [in the wrists] escalated last summer after Wimbledon,” she said. “I started working with a new coach and was very motivated. We had overtraining, lots of reps, and I kept going despite the pain because I didn't want to be seen as weak.
“I struggled with physical pain, but the moral side of that was also very difficult for me. I always want to push or strive for the best version of myself, but I knew I couldn't. I attach a lot of self-esteem to my accomplishments. If I lost the match, I would be very depressed, I would have a day of mourning, literally staring at the wall. I feel everything so passionately and intensely.
“I was under so much pressure to perform, people had no idea what was going on, and I needed to have this facade to keep everything inside. It was very hard. And then being scrutinized for it when they don't know what's going on. I am very young and still learning and making mistakes. It's much harder when you make mistakes in front of everyone and everyone has something to say about it. The tour is absolutely brutal.”
When Radukane entered the history of New York, everyone believed that her future was predetermined. But her comments show how difficult it is to achieve sustained success in this ultra-competitive sport.
First of all, you need smart people making smart decisions around you – and you need to ask why her career has become so volatile, with numerous personnel changes and non-stop reworking of everything from her technique to her racket setup. Even the king, when she arrived at Buckingham Palace in December to receive her MBE, asked her: “So you found a coach?”
From everything that happened, it’s easy to forget that Radukan is still is a student. We must hope that during this long hiatus from the court, she can forge a more sustainable path for years to come.
“I have an obsessive nature, I obsess over something and I need to get it,” she said. she. “I've been very high and very low, I've never had that balance that I aspire to.”
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