By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday August 3, 2022
"I probably did have certain expectations of myself that were probably a bit twisted,” Emma Raducanu said after her Citi Open opening-round win.
Photo credit: Citi Open Facebook
An older, wiser 19-year-old? Yes indeed!
That would be the current status of Emma Raducanu, the tennis wizard who last summer won the 2021 US Open title on her second appearance in a Grand Slam main draw – and the first qualifier to ever win a Grand Slam singles title.
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Though she has repeatedly downplayed the extraordinary pressure and expectations she has encountered since, the British star recently admitted that her own expectations had become “twisted” after winning the aforementioned title in New York last summer.
This year Raducanu, who defeated American Louisa Chirico on her Citi Open debut late Tuesday night, says that she’s become considerably wiser about all of that.
“I feel wiser now compared to, like, just after the US Open and the beginning of this year, because I think that no matter what I said, I probably did have, you know, certain expectations of myself that were probably a bit twisted,” Raducanu said.
Acceptance has been the key, she says.
“And now I genuinely just accept it. Okay, it's not going to be pretty necessarily or easy, but I'm like 100 percent okay for starting over, to be honest. Like if my ranking plummets to like 1000 and whatever, then I don't care. I know that being a US Open champ I'm going to somehow pull my way back up there. It's going to take a bit of time maybe, but, yeah, I'm just really, you know, accepting of that and looking forward to whatever journey it takes.”
A first success with Tursunov at the helm
Raducanu has declared that her player-coach relationship with Russian Dmitry Tursunov is strictly a trial, but for now that trial has gone well.
She says the man who helped guide Aryna Sabalenka and Annet Kontaveit to tremendous success on the WTA Tour is helping her be kinder to herself.
“He definitely has a good sense of humor, and he's definitely trying to make me take things easier on myself,” she said. “I put a lot of emphasis on everything I do, and I want to do it to the best of my abilities all the time.
“He's just slowly trying to shift me towards, ‘If it's not perfect, it's okay.’ Like, ‘If you shank one, it's okay.’ Just these sorts of things, and being more accepting of that. It definitely helped I think in today's match, because things weren't perfect. I wasn't playing amazing tennis, but I was accepting and I just fought through to the end.”
Raducanu will face Colombia’s Camila Osorio in the second round at D.C.