Emma Raducanu finished her practice at the U.S. Open on Friday by hitting with a young girl she had asked fans on social media to help her find after they hadn’t connected the day before.
Raducanu is back at the tournament she unexpectedly won three years ago, and she brushes off questions about whether she has played enough matches to be prepared for it.
Her 2021 U.S. Open title is still Raducanu’s only one on the WTA Tour, and she didn’t even play in Flushing Meadows last year because of injuries.
The 21-year-old from England has played fewer than 30 matches this year and chose not to play more, but she doesn’t question her readiness for the final Grand Slam of the season.
“Even when I won the U.S. Open, I only played a few tournaments that year,” Raducanu said. “Yes, they were closer together, but I’m not in any big rush to play those. I think I’d rather target tournaments and play the tournaments that I’m entered in.”
After losing in the fourth round of Wimbledon in July in her home Grand Slam, Raducanu chose not to play in the Olympics and only played once on the North American hard-court circuit, losing in the third round in Washington.
She decided not to play in Canada — where she was born and holds a passport — and instead returned to Britain to practice, rather than trying to play more tournaments before going back to New York, where she will face 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in the first round.
While some players want to play in many matches, Raducanu said that isn’t her approach.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be the player who’s playing, like, close to 30 events a year,” she said. “I think that’s not my style. It never has been.”
She couldn’t play too many tournaments in 2023, missing the second half of the year after having surgery on both wrists and an ankle. So her only appearance at the U.S. Open after she became the first player to come through qualifying to win a Grand Slam tournament in 2021 was a first-round loss to Alize Cornet the following year.
Raducanu said she feels more prepared to play in New York this time and got some extra practice on Friday with a 7-year-old fan who had watched her the day before and shouted that Raducanu was her favorite player.
Raducanu later apologized on social media for having to rush off after that workout and not meeting the girl, asking her followers to help find the fan.
She did find her on Friday and invited the fan to hit balls with her on the court.
“She barely missed a ball and she has a lot of courage to kind of go onto the court with a lot of people watching and start hitting balls, and it was nice to meet her and speak to her,” Raducanu said.
“Obviously I felt incredibly bad about yesterday but I feel good and I feel happy that I was able to connect with her today.”
Raducanu knows that some people question if she’s ready to win the U.S. Open. Seeing her name on the trophy and her picture among the champions on the grounds reminds her she has done it before and can do it again.
“I think that’s such an epic achievement and these two weeks I completed it,” she said. “So for me coming back here now, I come back with such a different outlook and just joy and promise, and it inspires me to want to do more.”
