EMMA LOSES AND BLAMES ‘EVERYTHING’
EMMA RADUCANU crashed out of the Qatar Open – and blamed her defeat on everything.
The 2021 US Open winner said she “struggled with everything” after her first opening-round loss of the year.
The 21-year-old, beaten 6-0 7-6 by world No.30 Anhelina Kalinina (below), is now planning to head home after struggling with the gruelling tour schedule.
Raducanu said: “To be honest I felt like I never really got into it.
“I think it was a combination of things. It’s my first day match I’ve played in a year so that’s different. I need to practise training outside a bit more because it’s very different.
“And also like with lights, conditions, shadows, I found it’s really hard to kind of see the ball. I think that when the tennis isn’t there you have to really try and fight and I think I did that in the second set.”
Raducanu came back from a break down twice in the second set after a woeful first set. She hit 48 unforced errors in the match and admitted very little went right.
Raducanu said: “I was struggling with everything, like serve, return, forehand, backhand. I just struggled with the timing of the ball but that will come with more time practising as well as matches.
“It’s hard for me to get used to the tour schedule so I need to schedule my tournaments a little bit better as well as trying to get more matches under my belt. I’m just going to go home and practise and we’ll see how it goes from there.”
Raducanu has played just seven matches in 2024, losing four of them. She reached the second round of the ASB Classic in Auckland and went a set up against second seed Elena Svitolina before losing in three sets.
She also reached the second round of the Australian Open and the second round of the Abu Dhabi Open.