“Emma Raducanu is good but she’s not great,” Mats Wilander calls the Brit’s failed title defence at the 2022 US Open “not a surprise”
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Mats Wilander and Emma Raducanu
11th seed at the 2022 US Open and also the defending champion, Emma Raducanu suffered a first-round defeat in her first-ever title defence dropping 2030 points from last year as she had entered the main draw last year through the qualifiers and had those points as well added to her ranking when she made the jump from being World No. 150 to World No. 23 after winning the major.
Raducanu was up against French veteran Alize Cornet who defeated the teenager 6-3, 6-3 in 1 hour and 43 minutes on the Louis Armstrong Stadium to end the title defence in the very first round for the Brit. Emma had fewer double faults in the match but failed to keep the discipline in finding winners and minimalising unforced errors resulting in her defeat in the match as Cornet won 66 points to Emma’s 51.
“I do think that we now are going to start seeing what Emma Raducanu is all about,”: Mats Wilander
Raducanu’s defeat means she will be ranked outside the Top-70 and could fall further below depending on other players’ results. Speaking about her dismal performance and an early end to her campaign in New York, former World No. 1 and 1988 US Open winner Mats Wilander gave his opinions on the Brit’s future hereon.
“It looked to me like she was playing OK. She started off well in the second set, that is when I thought she was going to turn it around. But there are opponents and match-ups at different parts of your career that are a good draw and not a good draw. I would say that for Raducanu right now, playing someone like Cornet who is smart and experienced, is not a good draw. She [Cornet] doesn’t make mistakes and also is a giant killer, she’s not afraid of the bigger players. It’s just not a good draw. So is that [Raducanu’s loss] a surprise? Not really to be honest.
“I do think that we now are going to start seeing what Raducanu is all about. She’s going to drop all the ranking points, and she’s going to start from zero, except she will still be in the majors and in most tournaments. Hopefully, she can hang on to [current coach] Dmitry Tursunov for a little longer than a few months because I think that is important too. I don’t see much of a difference from Emma this year compared to last year, except she was just confident and other players were scared to play her.
“It’s obviously a surprise that the defending champion goes out but at the same time, she’s been on tour for a year and two months. It is not a worry to me at all. In fact, I think this is a very, very important step in her career that defending this title is over and she can now focus on her tennis, and trying to get her ranking up in a normal way, rather than just rise completely to the top.
“Emma is good but she’s not great. She had a lot of confidence last year, and she is a fighter, and she plays well. The only thing I don’t know is, I feel like she hasn’t quite found her identity as a player. Is she a bit of a risk-taker? Does she play really aggressively? Or does she use her movement skills, and dial back a little bit and play with a little bit of variation? Maybe a little bit more like Simona Halep used to play?” said Wilander speaking on Eurosport.
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Sarthak Shitole
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