Emma Raducanu has been told that she will need to “suffer” in order to rediscover her best tennis. The Brit recently returned from an eight-month injury layoff that saw her drop outside of the world’s top 300. Speaking exclusively to Express Sport, Alex Corretja urged Raducanu to switch up her schedule to include smaller events and forget about rankings as she continues her comeback at the Australian Open.
Raducanu was back in action at last week’s ASB Classic, eight months after she had three operations that ended her 2023 season. There were positive signs for the former world No. 10, who was put to the test in two tight matches. The 21-year-old blew a 5-2 lead over Elena-Gabriela Ruse in the final set of her opening match but still managed to close it out.
She then crashed out to second seed Elina Svitolina after they split the first two sets in two tiebreaks. And the close contests are exactly what Corretja believes Raducanu needs at this stage in her comeback instead of easy wins. “She needs matches – matches in the small tournaments, in qualifying, and in tournaments where you need to go and suffer,” the former world No 2 exclusively told Express Sport.
“You’re not going to beat anyone 1 and 1, it doesn’t help to win 6-1 6-1 right now, it is better to suffer. It’s better to struggle in order to come back to your best tennis.” For now, Raducanu will need to play lower-level tournaments or rely on wildcards as her ranking suffered during her hiatus.
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But the Spaniard, who will be working for Eurosport and discovery+ during their live coverage of the Australian Open, doesn’t want Raducanu to obsess over the rankings. He continued: “If she goes step by step and she doesn’t feel like she needs to come back to the top 10 in the next six months, things will come.
“Because she has the game, she doesn’t need to worry about her game. It’s just to go day-by-day and play match-by-match not thinking about the goals of a ranking. I don’t think that will help her, I believe it will be better to focus only on improving and getting back to her best level.”
Instead, Corretja thought that Raducanu would be able to climb back up so long as she was playing her game. He added: “I think now the rankings are the least important because it’s not a matter of ranking, it’s a matter of the level of the game.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it is for a young girl becoming all of a sudden such a big star in the UK, in the whole world. Just breaking the whole thing, winning the US Open from being in qualifying to becoming a huge star. I don’t really know how to deal with that. I think you need to have someone there that has been there before to tell you how to deal with that moment, with the press, with the expectations from everyone.
“So I’m just wishing her the best because she’s an unbelievable player. So much talent, such nice to see her play. The determination she’s got, the forehand, the backhand, nice serve, the movement, the return. But definitely you need to play with your mind, and your mind needs to be fresh. It needs to be clean. And I’m not so sure how you can be clean and not tired in your mind when you have, all of sudden, the whole world on your back at that age from week to another.”
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