British tennis player Emma Raducanu is keen to play as many games as she can in the last weeks of the 2024 season.
At the Korea Open this week, the 21-year-old is participating in just her third tournament following her defeat in the fourth round of Wimbledon. In her recent match, she overcame American Peyton Stearns in the opening round.
The former US Open champion has acknowledged that she made mistakes with her summer programme and that she would want to play as many matches as possible in Asia, where she feels most comfortable.
Raducanu’s 2024 playing season
Raducanu only played in Washington before the US Open, having opted to skip the Olympics earlier this summer in order to concentrate on the hard-court swing in North America. After losing to Sofia Kenin in the first round, the former Flushing Meadows champion broke down in tears and admitted she should have played more.
Now that she will be competing in two Asian events—the Wuhan Open next month and the China Open starting on September 25—Raducanu is trying to make up for the missed plays.
The athlete admitted: “I think the rest of the year, as long as I’m healthy, I’m going to try and finish the season and play as many matches as I can.”
She added: “It’s something I’m really light on since the grass through the [Washington] DC period. I’ve not played many points, even in practice…. So as gruelling as [the match against Stearns] was, I think I had three hours of match experience which can only aid me going into the next few weeks…For me now, I just want to play matches and, in the meantime, do a little bit of work on my game where I can.”
Raducanu’s Asian foray
Raducanu, who has been eager to play in Asia again after missing the majority of the previous season due to surgery on both wrists and one ankle, will take on eighth-seeded Yue Yuan in the second round.
The athlete has a great chance to improve on her current position of 70th in the world over the next several weeks as she has no ranking points to defend.
With her upcoming games, she declared: “Playing in China, I’ve never done that, so that’s going to be a first for me. I feel pretty comfortable in this environment, which is an advantage…. I stacked the year on the back-end heavy because I’m excited. I thrive in Asia.”
Source: Sky Sports