This time it all ended in tears for Emma Raducanu at the US Open. At the scene of her greatest triumph, the humbled world No.72 admitted she had messed up her preparations for the final Grand Slam of the season and had paid the price.
“I feel down, I feel sad,” she sobbed. “Obviously, this is a tournament I really want to do well in.”
Remarkably, the Bromley-based star has still to win a match in New York since her amazing 2021 triumph here as a teenage qualifier
Her title defence was all over after only one match in 2022 and she missed last year’s event after wrist and ankle injuries. And in a half-empty Grandstand this time, she went down 6-1 3-6 6-4 to American Sofia Kenin.
After such a feel-good start to her career, her terrible US Open record reflects a general pattern of defeats on the court and feeling lost off it.
Following her first match as a Grand Slam champion in Indian Wells in October 2021 – just after her coach in New York, Andrew Richardson, had been fired by her father Ian – she issued a public appeal through the travelling UK media for a new coach. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.
Her injury-dogged career since has seen short-lived bursts of optimism followed by the cold-harsh reality of top-class professional sport.
She was in bullish, even cocky, form before the tournament here when made her oft-repeated claim that she had got her “spark back” and dismissed Andy Murray’s achievements as “old news”.
She also defended her limited playing schedule this summer by stating: “I just always do things a little bit differently.”
But against fellow former Grand Slam champion Kenin, she started slowly and ran out of steam. Raducanu was simply not match-ready. She lost six consecutive games in the first set and then gave up the crucial break in the third with a double fault.
The 21-year-old had recorded her best Grand Slam result since 2021 by reaching the Wimbledon fourth round. But after also skipping French Open qualifying and the Olympics, she lost momentum deciding not to enter qualifying in Toronto and Cincinnati after playing Washington.
It is quite an irony for the most famous qualifier in tennis history. One British player told me that Raducanu – the multi-millionairess sponsored by Porsche and Tiffany – does not want to play qualifying because it is not good for her “brand”.
Not playing is certainly not good for her tennis. “I was maybe a bit slow starting,” she said. “Yeah, I would have preferred to probably play a little bit more coming into the US Open. I think I can learn from it and manage my schedule slightly differently.”
Asked if it had been her decision to return to London after playing in Washington, she said: “No, I would say it wasn’t me. It was more of like a collective.”
She next plans to play the Korea Open next month. “Until then, I’m just gonna go back to the drawing board and train and analyse where I went wrong and try and improve for the rest of the season,” she said.
“Obviously, the Slams are over for this year, but it’s not actually that long until Australia comes around again.”
