By Martyn Herman
LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) – Emma Raducanu’s Wimbledon preparations have been overshadowed by another injury setback and former British number one Johanna Konta believes the home favourite needs to build up her tolerance to adversity.
The 23-year-old Raducanu’s career since her staggering 2021 U.S. Open triumph as a teenaged qualifier has been littered with injuries and illness while a succession of coaches have come and gone.
Re-united with Andrew Richardson, the coach she surprisingly split with shortly after her Flushing Meadows fairytale, a rejuvenated Raducanu reached the Queen’s Club final two weeks ago and is seeded number 30 at Wimbledon.
But the old worries have returned with Raducanu withdrawing from the Nottingham Open. On Saturday, with her lower leg strapped because of shin discomfort, she cut short her practice session.
Raducanu also cancelled her pre-tournament press conference, raising fears ahead of her opening round against Croatia’s Antonia Ruzic on Court One on Monday.
Konta, who reached the 2017 Wimbledon semi-finals and rose to number four in the world, suggested some of Raducanu’s injuries could be due to the stress of expectation.
“My opinion on Emma… it’s her building, her continuing to build up her tolerance to adversity,” Konta, who will be part of Eurosport’s coverage team during Wimbledon, told Reuters.
“Not in the sense that she can’t handle tough times but I think when it comes to, on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis, when things aren’t going well, you feel pain much more, it’s much easier to feel injured.
“And it’s not because you are necessarily looking for an excuse or you are necessarily looking for an easy, quote unquote, an easy way out. When you are on a match court, and things aren’t going well, if you have a niggle, an injury that you’re going into that match with, you will definitely feel it a lot more than if things are going well.
“So I think for her, I’ve been really keen to see her really make peace with the difficulty of it.”
Konta said Raducanu’s ‘insane’ U.S. Open triumph means she has had a back-to-front career.
“Since then, it’s been a bit of a catch-up. She’s been trying to gain experience, trying to gain match fitness, trying to gain years on tour being a Grand Slam champion,” she said.
“I think for me, I’m really willing and hoping for her to not get the monkey off her back or make peace with the monkey. I feel like there’s pressure to explain away why things aren’t going well, the pressure to feel like she has to have a reason why things aren’t (going well).
“A lot of these injuries, I think, will be rooted in stress more than anything as well.”
Raducanu struggled this year with a post-viral illness as well as a back issue before a first-round loss at the French Open. In 2023 she missed the French Open and Wimbledon after procedures on both hands and an ankle.
She ended last season early because of illness.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; editing by Clare Fallon)
