“It’s not going to be that easy,” Justine Henin issues warning to Emma Raducanu to focus only on her game during her title defence in the US Open
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Emma Raducanu and Justine Henin
World No. 11 Emma Raducanu is about to start her campaign in New York for the 2022 US Open where she is the defending champion and has 2040 points to defend or else she will drop nearly 70 places in the rankings. The pressure on the 19-year old will be immense and that added with the poor form she has been throughout the season, the next fortnight is quite tough for the Brit.
Emma’s historic run last year starting as a qualifier and then going on to win the title without dropping a single set stunned the entire globe and made her a household name. While many expected her to continue with those performances, injuries and her inability to stick to a single routine with regards to coaches hampered her season and she reaches New York with a 13-15 record for the season being 6-8 on hardcourts.
“We will see what kind of player she is,”: Justine Henin on Emma Raducanu
Emma became an instant celebrity after winning the Grand Slam last year and had already become a crowd favourite even before winning the title. With her run in Wimbledon last year getting her some attention, the win in New York saw her popularity go off the charts and 7-time Grand Slam champion Justine Henin, who won the US Open twice, has warned of this very clearly over the coming weeks to focus solely on her game.
“If we come back a year ago, we couldn’t expect that from her. She was playing the first tournaments on the tour and then she wins a Grand Slam the way she did. We all loved it – it [the final] was with Leylah [Fernandez]. It was fresh. They were playing great tennis. We need personalities also on the tour and I think these two really gave us a lot of emotions last year. I was really excited about what was happening and then what happened after – we could expect this in a certain way.
“I don’t know her [Raducanu] personally. So the fact she changed coach, she changed a lot of things – everyone started to criticise this but I’m not into it really to judge this. The only thing I say is she needs to be focused on the game if she wants to keep a certain kind of balance in what’s happening for her and after winning a Grand Slam of course so much attention, so many solicitations, agents and probably money and a lot of things. We can suppose that it’s not easy to deal with at such a young age with no experience,” said Henin on Eurosport.
“But you can build, build, build because you are very good, very young and then you start winning Grand Slams early. What happened in the last few months with her was quite normal. I think she will be relieved also once this US Open will be behind her. How she’s going to deal with it, we will see. We can suppose it’s not going to be that easy. But I think this game is full of surprises. How she can compose herself with everything that happened in her life – that will be the question.
“Not only in the next few weeks – the US Open is almost a detail for Raducanu – but how she’s going to deal with her career in the next few weeks, few months, next few years, because she’s so young. That is going to be the question. We will see what kind of player she is. We cannot say after the US Open last year what kind of player she was. It was fresh. It was great to see. But we needed to see more. And we cannot judge at this moment right now. We will do it a bit later,” added Henin.
Raducanu will start her campaign with a match against French veteran Alize Cornet who is playing in her 63rd consecutive Grand Slam tournament and certainly has the talent and skills to knock the Brit off in the first round as well meaning Emma will need to be on her toes from game 1.
Also Read: US Open 2022: Women’s Singles Draw Preview and Prediction
Also Read: US Open 2022: Men’s Singles Draw Preview and Prediction
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Sarthak Shitole
(3462 Articles Published)