Raducanu closes his terrible year with a negative balance

The a terrible year Emma Raducanu’s (terrible year) on the women’s tennis circuit came to an end on Tuesday at the WTA 500 in Ostrava, where she fell in the first round against the Russian Daria Kasatkina. It was the 19th loss for the US Open champion in 2021, in a season that she will close with 17 wins, as an injury to her right wrist will not allow her to compete in the remaining tournaments in 2022. She was going to play next week at the Transilvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, but the tournament announced on Thursday the withdrawal of the British of Romanian origin.

Raducanu says goodbye to the course with a negative balance and outside the top-50. She is 67th, but she can lose more positions by the end of a year which started in the 19th position and in which it became the 10th in the world between July and August. At the end of September, her tennis experienced an upturn in Seoul, but when she was better she was playing, He had to withdraw due to injury (left leg) in the semifinals, in the middle of the match against Jelena Ostapenko.

The Latvian is precisely another example of ephemeral shine and subsequent suffering since 2017, when Serena Williams’ dominance at the Grand Slams ended. She champion at Roland Garros that campaign, she made the semifinals at Wimbledon 2018 and since then she has never come close to the final rounds of a major. The same thing happened to Sofia Kenin, winner of the Australian Open 2020 and finalist shortly after at Roland Garros, now missing in action. And to Bianca Andreescu, who took the title at the 2019 US Open and later fell into a crisis from which she has not yet been able to get out. She, too, has not managed to curdle the winner a year ago in Paris, Barbora Krejcikova, and it remains to be seen if she consolidates Elena Rybakina, who won a few months ago at Wimbledon and then fell in the first round of the US Open.

The case of Raducanu, close to turning 20, is proof of the havoc that sometimes reaches high levels of sports notoriety and world fame at an early age. In your case, you also appreciate a management problem. Since standing out at the All England Club in 2021, has had six different coaches. It was prepared there by Nigel Sears, who was replaced by Andrew Richardson before succeeding in New York. A few days later she fired him and after a brief period of time in which she had the Spanish Esteban Carril, she Emma hired Torben Beltz. But at the end of April, the girl ended the relationship with Angelique Kerber’s former coach and she put herself under the command of a British Federation coach, Iain Bates, until he called the Russian Dimitry Tursunov, a controversial movement in the midst of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

people and millions

“There are a lot of people around. That is probably something that has changed. Before I could do what I wanted, let myself go. I think now many people surround me at all times. It’s something that comes with what I do and I think I adapted. It is part of the sport. I dont complain”, he said before starting the defense of his title at the US Open, where he did not pass the first game (he fell to the French Cornet). Since her brilliant and resounding triumph in the United States the previous year, the accumulated balance is 19-22 and her best result, the aforementioned semifinals in South Korea. On the more negative side, 10 first-rate losses in as many tournaments. Despite this fall, Raducanu is a very young millionaire. She already had contracts with Wilson, Nike, and signed with Dior, Tiffany & Co, British Airways, Evian and Vodafone, which have not seen a return on her investments, at least in the sporting aspect. If she recovers in time, Raducanu will play again on December 16. in the exhibition of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, where she will face the Tunisian Ons Jabeur.