Emma Raducanu: 'I'd like to play her with more than five hours' practice'
Emma Raducanu predicted that she and Coco Gauff will be “the next generation” of women’s tennis after they shared an electrifying match on Rod Laver Arena.
Raducanu couldn’t quite find a way past Gauff’s extraordinary retrieval skills, and eventually went out by a 6-3, 7-6 scoreline. But there was at least some consolation in the fact that these are the youngest players in the Australian Open draw, with the sole exception of 17-year-old Czech prodigy Linda Fruhvirtova.
It was fascinating to see two of the sport’s most charismatic young stars face off for the first time, and the match-up proved to be highly entertaining. At a time when the women’s tour has been devastated by the retirements of Ashleigh Barty and Serena Williams, along with Naomi Osaka’s maternity leave, their embryonic rivalry should provide a welcome shot in arm.
“I think that we're going to be playing each other many times in the future as we're both young and coming,” said Raducanu after her loss to Gauff, who is 17 months younger than her. “You know, we're going to be the next generation.
“I'd really like to play her again, maybe with more than five hours under my belt of practice.
This last comment was a reference to the challenges Raducanu has faced since she turned an ankle in Auckland less than two weeks before the start of the Australian Open. Unpicking much of the work she had put in over the off-season, it was a disastrously timed setback.
But Raducanu and her team pulled together in order to overcome the injury. Her mood at the post-match press conference was sunny, which may be the result of having finally settled on a backroom staff that she feels comfortable with.
Asked where she would be playing next, Raducanu replied “I'm actually not sure. I just have to review the body right now. I've had some niggles in the past few months, and I just need to get that sorted, train, and then we'll see after that.
“But I'm actually just looking forward to putting in the work. I feel I'm putting in a good system in place, and I'm really buying into and trusting the work that I'm doing with Sebastian [Sachs, her new coach] and the rest of the team.
“So, yeah, I'm feeling good and confident that in six months time I know it's not going to be the finished product, but hopefully I would have made strides.”
Raducanu’s unconventional build-up to this event took the pressure off her, so that she was able to play in a similarly free-swinging manner to her triumphant US Open campaign of 2021.
Admittedly, the Gauff defeat means that she has yet to beat a top-ten player. Belinda Bencic, ranked No 12 when they played in New York, remains her most prominent scalp. But the scale of Gauff’s celebration here showed how much of a test this was.
It was an encouraging performance from Raducanu, especially in the light of her disrupted build-up. She seemed to suffer some discomfort in her stomach or rib area in the second set, dropping the speed on her serve for a while. But rather than calling the trainer to the court, she pressed on, finding her best shotmaking in the dying moments of the match.
“With the limited practice time it is difficult to play matches and be in that sort of condition,” was Raducanu’s cagey response, when asked if her stomach had been bothering her. “But, yeah, I think we did a great job to get onto the court this week.
“Thirteen days ago, all the chips were against us, and the chances of me playing this tournament were very, very low. We just did absolutely everything we could. We had pretty much, like, 10 days before the tournament started, and day one I was in crutches and doing pool rehab. We’ve been doing isometrics and everything and just taking care of what we could control.”
“And there were a lot of things that we couldn't do, but how we faced the adversities that were thrown at us, I think we did that in a really good collective effort. To stay positive even though the chances were pretty low, I think that the mental side of it was big too.”
