Emma Raducanu dreams of winning Wimbledon as the 'ultimate dream' as she plans to return in the New Year

Emma Raducanu has not played since mid-April. Photo: Getty Images/Clive Brunskill

Emma Raducanu has confirmed she will not return to the playing field until the new year, almost nine months after her last tour appearance.

In a conversation with BBC London News, Raducanu said: “I will be back next season. All tournaments have ended this season. So it was hard to watch them go by. “I tried to stay on my line as much as possible and focus on my recovery and the road back.”

Raducanu's last match ended in a straight sets loss to Jelena Ostapenko in Stuttgart in mid-April. She then went to Madrid for the all-around, but withdrew without scoring a single goal. The next step was a series of surgeries in May: first on her two wrists, which suffer from “carpal prominence,” a congenital condition associated with bone spurs, and then on her ankle.

Her first training session after surgery took place on August 2 at the National Tennis Center in southwest London. The next few weeks will be devoted to more hitting practice and the kind of conditioning that—with luck—will keep her injury-free for most of next season.

Due to various fitness issues, Raducanu has made just 10 appearances this year and a relatively low 36 appearances in 2022. Despite her status as a former US Open champion, she still lacks experience on the WTA Tour.

When asked by the BBC how she blocks all talk about her career, Raducanu replied: “The fact that they still talk about me — even if I am not present at these events or not about them — I think it's just a compliment. Someone told me, «Worry when people don't talk about you.»

Raducanu has not yet identified a specific tournament for her comeback, but her schedule will likely center on a trip to Australia for the year's first Grand Slam in mid-January. Even though her ranking recently fell outside the world top 200 for the first time since she reached the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2021, she will still be able to use her protected ranking to qualify for the main draw.

In Conversation from the BBC Raducanu said: “The main dream is still and always has been to win Wimbledon.”