After Play Test, Raducanu Returns to Familiar Racquet
By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Photo credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty
After a brief offseason stick up, Emma Raducanu returned to her regular racquet.
When Raducanu fell to Maria Sakkari 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in her United Cup opener in Perth on Tuesday, she was playing with her familiar Wilson Blade racquet.
Afterward, Raducanu said she spent a couple of weeks play-testing a Yonex stick in a search for a bit more power on her shots.
Ultimately, the former US Open champion returned to the familiar feel of her Wilson racquet for match play.
“I didn’t have much time to test, because I wasn’t playing for too long,” Raducanu said. “I was just looking to see if there was anything I can gain or add and hoped that I could have that time to do it, and I did. I practiced those two weeks pretty much with that [Yonex] racquet.
“It’s great. I just felt like to play a match and to fully trust it, it was too soon. Yeah, I just switched back to my racquet. I know with certain shots, you feel every gram, you feel every kind of millimeter of your own racquet, and you know it like your own hand. I think that’s why I went back to it.”
Though she plans to stick with her Wilson racquet for the start of the season, Raducanu said she’s open to more play-testing with the Yonex when she has a break in her tournament schedule.
“In a racquet, I probably was looking for a bit more power, a bit more help and miles per hour on the ball, especially when it gets so heavy like it can in the evenings and with the balls,” Raducanu said. “I was just trying that out. This one didn’t work. Yeah, probably now I’ll just stick to this until I have another gap
in the season.”
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