NEW YORK — When British tennis player Emma Raducanu arrived in New York last year, she could move around in blissful anonymity. She managed to lock herself away from the growing buzz around her by watching Formula One, listening to jazz and eating poke bowls in her hotel room during the tournament. Every night, she’d walk to Times Square to get frozen yogurt.
Two weeks later, she was the US Open champion and a superstar, with her face on a billboard in Times Square.
The year since has been one of learning, battling through adversity and adjusting to life as one of the most famous sports stars on the planet. So it’s no surprise that it’s also been one of mixed performances on the court.
Her 2022 US Open campaign lasted just one round, as she fell to Alize Cornet 6-3, 6-3 in 1 hour, 42 minutes on Tuesday at Louis Armstrong Stadium. Raducanu looked exasperated at times, struggling again with blister problems on her racket hand.
“With perspective, actually as a 19-year-old, I’ve not had a bad year,” Raducanu said soon after the defeat to Cornet. “To be top hundred, if you told me that a year ago, I’d take it. But, like, I think it would be nice in a way to kind of just start over, start fresh.”
At the beginning of the year, those close to Raducanu talked about how she’d need to take a few steps back to collect the experiences she skipped on her remarkable journey last year. And that’s how it has played out.
She has had to contend with injuries and an untimely bout of COVID, to navigate new surfaces and to play with a target on her back as a Grand Slam winner.
Prior to the US Open, Raducanu’s Grand Slam win-loss ratio was 12-17, with three second-round defeats this year. But within those top-line statistics lies a story of development and valuable experience.
“[This year] has been about building her match count and developing her resilience, which the sport requires,” Iain Bates, head of women’s tennis for the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), told ESPN.
Bates said the ideal “match count” for a player Raducanu’s age is from 50 to 60. To date, she has only managed to tally 30 matches due to frustrating injuries. And her year was already behind schedule before it started. She contracted COVID in December, which interrupted her preseason calendar.
“It’s not easy to just make that time up later in the year, because the tour goes from week to week to week,” Bates said.
Raducanu lost at the Sydney Open in the first round then got through the first round of the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at www.espn.com – TENNIS…