EMMA RADUCANU hopes she will be ready to play Wimbledon, despite a frightful injury scare during her first grass-court event of the year. U.S. Open champ Emma Raducanu is expected to be fit to play at Wimbledon, despite withdrawing from WTA Birmingham following a recent injury setback. While U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu will not play again in Birmingham, she may be entering the Eastbourne event, held one week before Wimbledon begins on June 27.
Raducanu’s Wimbledon preparations took a hit when she was forced to withdraw from her Nottingham first-round match with Viktorija Golubic on Tuesday. In Emma Raducanus’s first appearance on her home soil since the event last year, she was forced to retire just half an hour into her match with Viktorija Golubic after suffering absolutely a freak strain in her first game.
She admitted that she had no idea whether or not she was going to be suitably suited to play Wimbledon, having been forced to retire a third time after her surprising New York triumph. Emma Raducanu carried her momentum into the second set, breaking through in the long, 12-minute first set, which saw five dice and four break-point opportunities for qualifying storm Sands. At the same time, Sanders continued to shoot double faults and looked outmatched by the eighth seed. Great Britains, Emma Raducanu is flowing with confidence right now. After saving two break points from her own serve, the second on a measured drop shot, she moved into striking distance of her first when she took another match from the serving of Marketa Vondrousova.
Katie Boulter’s retirement at Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday meant that Britains Emma Raducanu was the final British woman remaining in the main draw, and expectations were not high against a much more accomplished foe, despite her excellent first win at Wimbledon. The U.S. Open champ may miss Wimbledon this year after an injury in Nottingham forced her to withdraw from the event.
The injury that the U.S. Open champ suffered at Nottingham is not considered severe enough to exclude her from Wimbledon. Still, she will miss the WTA event next week in Birmingham, having been advised not to play for several days. A scan has revealed the freak lateral strain which forced her to withdraw from her first-round Rothesay Open Nottingham match is not seriously sustained though it does rule out Emma Raducanu for next week’s Birmingham warm-up event.
This week’s injury scare was when Emma Raducanu was forced to withdraw from a tournament due to an injury since winning the U.S. Open in September; she has also pulled out of matches in Guadalajara in February and Rome in May. Emma Raducanu remains on track to compete at Wimbledon at the end of this month, but she will not play next week’s Rothesay Classic in Birmingham.
