One of the great privileges of covering Wimbledon in recent years has been watching the practice sessions on Centre Court.
Once considered strictly out of bounds until the Championships began, the All England Club in 2022 decided to allow a select few players to bed in the hallowed lawns.
And so it was that us British journalists were among the 50 or so people watching Emma Raducanu and Elena Rybakina prepare for last year’s tournament. They went through the usual routines and finished with a practice set – which is when things got ugly, or as ugly as things can get on the most beautiful court in the world.
Rybakina smoked the British No1, rifling serves and groundstrokes past her with such venom it’s a wonder they didn’t leave scorch marks on the lawns. Watching from way down at court level, in the corner where the players used to walk out near the scoreboard, it was apparent how totally overpowered Raducanu was.
It is dangerous to read too much into practice, of course, but that half an hour came to mind when Raducanu was drawn to face the Kazakh in the third round of the US Open – and the result was exactly the same. Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion, won 6-1, 6-2 in a shade over an hour.
This all brings us to the Australian Open and the ominous figure of Aryna Sabalenka lurking in the third round for Raducanu. It draws into focus once again the 23-year-old’s truly appalling record against the creme de la creme of the women’s game.
Emma Raducanu’s flaws were unwittingly on display during a practice session at Wimbledon
The British No 1 has a pleasing all-court game but is short on weapons that can disarm the best
In 12 meetings against Rybakina, Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek – the clear best four players of the last five years – Raducanu has lost 12 and won just a single set. She has lost two sets 6-0 and six of them 6-1 and that is the worrying thing – too often she has not even come close.
We go back to Raducanu’s triumph at the 2021 US Open and the naysayers – it started before the champagne was even warm – were bleating about how she did not have to beat anyone half-decent to win it. Raducanu won 10 matches in a row in New York – including qualifying – without dropping a set: anyone trying to do down that achievement is a fool.
But it is a fact that No11 seed Belinda Bencic was the highest-ranked player she faced, and that for all her improvements over the past 18 months she still does not have a prized scalp to her name.
The question is: why? The first reason pertains to her style of play. Raducanu is a wonderfully smooth ballstriker and a terrific athlete but she does not possess any true weapons. There are players on tour who, while far worse than Raducanu overall, have one dynamite shot which could give them a one-off win against even the best in the world.
Raducanu’s best shot is her return, especially when she can go after a second serve. The problem against Rybakina or Sabalenka, in particular, is their serves are so strong that she does not get much of an opportunity to attack. She needs to find a way to make things uncomfortable for the top players, whether that be mixing up the height and spin of her strokes or just focusing on redirecting their pace back at them.
Then there is the physical side. Raducanu’s explosion on to the tour in 2021 meant she was thrust into high-level WTA tennis with what was essentially still the body of a schoolgirl. It has taken many years – and many injuries – to build robustness in her body and there is still more work to be done. And the best players – particularly Swiatek and Gauff – are expert at making matches intensely physical. Against those two especially, Raducanu has looked like a boxer caught in the wrong weight class.
Finally, we go between the ears – not of Raducanu, but her opponents. The British No1 feels there is an element of the top players stepping up their games against her and while that may sound strange, there is likely some truth to it.
Raducanu was drawn against Aryna Sabalenka three times last year and although she pushed the world No 1, she lost all three matches
When Raducanu won the US Open and shot to superstardom, she put a target on her back. The best players in the world were determined to stamp down this nascent talent and, even now when Raducanu is less of a threat, their minds will be trained more sharply to face a fellow Grand Slam champion.
So Raducanu will hope to get the chance to show, in a few days’ time, that she is making progress in her attempts to tangle with the big beasts of the tennis jungle. She will not be looking ahead to Sabalenka just yet, though, with an awkward first round against promising Thai Mananchaya Sawangkaew.
That match is the second of the Margaret Court Arena’s night session, beginning late morning tomorrow, UK time. With that, another season in the fascinating career of Emma Raducanu begins in earnest.
