Emma Raducanu: I'm not feeling 100 per cent before French Open
Expectations of Emma Raducanu going deep at the French Open should not be high. As well as the prospect of facing the four-times champion Iga Swiatek in the second round, her preparations for the most gruelling of the grand-slam events has involved overcoming a phobia of needles to have acupuncture on her back.
This is far from ideal for the 22-year-old Briton in only her second appearance at Roland Garros — after her debut here in 2022, she missed the 2023 event because of injury and skipped qualifying in 2024.
She admitted on Saturday that she is still 'getting her bearings' around this famous venue, but Raducanu at least knows her way to the physio table. After suffering a spasm at the Strasbourg Open earlier this week, her back has required careful management before her first-round match against Wang Xinyu, the world No42 from China, on Monday.
'It's not feeling 100 per cent,' Raducanu said. 'I had a spasm in Strasbourg, and have just been trying to manage it as best I can by doing treatment.
'I've been on the practice court last night and this morning. It felt OK, but obviously it's different playing a match. I'm trying to do everything to get up to speed as fast as possible.'
Though not quite as severe, this is a similar issue to what Raducanu suffered from during her pre-season preparations in December. Back then she abandoned her plans for an early arrival down under and withdrew from her scheduled warm-up tournaments for the Australian Open. The use of acupuncture then and now has forced her to face a longtime fear.
'At the start of the year I was so scared of needles. It was my biggest phobia,' Raducanu said. 'That was the only way I was going to be able to play Australia. Since then, I've been kind of dipping my toes into it because I know it helps, even though I'm really scared of them. That's how I've been trying to manage it.'
A phobia of needles is particularly challenging for a sportsperson, because they are required to undergo random drugs blood-testing on and off tournament sites. It does not help either when anti-doping officers struggle to find a vein.
'Sometimes it feels like pin the [tail on the] donkey because at 6am you're not very hydrated and everything,' Raducanu said. 'It's like you can't get any blood out, and they have however many attempts. That's a bit difficult, but we all have to go through it.
'I was very scared the first few times, but you obviously don't have a choice. They penalise you if you don't do it pretty badly, so I built up my tolerance that way. It's not the most enjoyable thing, but it's just part of what we have to do.'
Thankfully, swimming in the sea is not a professional requirement. 'I'm not great in the water either, to be honest, with what's underneath,' Raducanu said. 'Not even super deep. If you had seen me in the sea, I need goggles when I go swimming, but it's scary because I don't want to see what's under there. It's hard.'
While Raducanu has a reputation for being injury prone, she has actually been relatively niggle-free in a busy schedule this year. Clay, however, can exacerbate back issues because of higher ball bounces and longer rallies compared to hard and grass courts.
Raducanu maintains that she is comfortable playing throurgh the pain here despite being pushed a little too hard on this subject in the past. Asked on Saturday about Caroline Garcia's recent comments on the macho-esque pressure on tennis players to push through discomfort, Raducanu revealed that she had also experienced similar from unnamed former members of her support team.
'I know from personal experience with my wrists, I was struggling for seven months with them before I ended up having surgery [in 2023],' Raducanu said. 'I just kept pushing through because people were telling me I wasn't tough enough. Like I need to just work through it, like it's normal I'm feeling fatigued because I'm training so much. When in reality I knew there was pain, and I knew it kind of felt more than just soreness.
'I wish I would have listened to myself sooner. I would have saved myself maybe like eight to 12 months of struggling, but I guess I can learn from that. Now I am a little bit more astute when it comes to what pain is manageable and what pain should be taken more seriously.'
Emma Raducanu v Wang Xinyu
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