The Times - UK (2022-05-26)

70 2GM Thursday May 26 2022 | the times

SportFrench Open

Owen Slot

Chief Sports

Writer, Paris

Emma Raducanu (GB, 12) 611

Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Bela) 366

T

his is all uncharted water for

Emma Raducanu. It’s almost

unprecedented what she has

done in becoming a grand-

slam champion with little

experience of the regular tour.

Everything has been done back to

front and now she has this massive

target on her back.

Aliaksandra Sasnovich made for a

It’s tough for Emma

to have a massive

target on her back

tough and gritty opponent yesterday,

but this is the tour. Every professional

match is played at a level that is really

high. It makes it worse for Raducanu

that everything she is doing is under

intense scrutiny from the public and

being picked apart. Every match she

plays is on a show court.

This was a good first clay-court

season for her. She played well

throughout and was particularly

impressive in Madrid. The challenge

is maintaining this level throughout a

tournament. She keeps coming up

against experienced tour players who

have her card marked. Emotionally

this must be very tough.

I think Raducanu is handling tour

life well. Yes, it has been a challenge

Annabel Croft

TV pundit and

ex-British No 1

roft

For one set on the Suzanne Lenglen
Court at Roland Garros yesterday
morning, Emma Raducanu looked like
the Emma Raducanu a nation had
switched on to watch on the TV last
September. Leon Smith, the GB Davis
Cup captain, on Radio 5 Live’s com-
mentary, watched that first set and said
it was her best since her US Open win.
Flashes of brilliance have been too brief
since that New York fairytale, but here
was a whole set, a solid piece of work.
Wishful thinkers would have been
hoping that that’s it, that she’s back, that
the magic has returned and we’re back
in September again. Seasoned observ-
ers are too acquainted with the reality
that this 19-year-old athlete, who has
been growing up before our eyes, is still
yet to reach tennis’s full adulthood.
Thus it was yesterday that for an hour
she was as good as you could hope. She
was engulfed in an almighty battle with
Aliaksandra Sasnovich, the 28-year-
old Belarusian who is ranked No 67 in
the world but was playing as if she
belonged in the top 20.
Sasnovich started marginally the
stronger only for Raducanu to raise her
level so high that when she started
attacking Sasnovich’s second serve, she
made quick gains. A lethal backhand
cross-court winner was followed by a
forehand winner down the line.
Sasnovich’s serve was broken but never
her resilience.
When Raducanu broke again to win
the first set 6-3 it seemed that she had
indeed brought the Belarusian to heel,
but that was as long as the “Emma’s
back” storyline would last. After the
first set, Raducanu faded. It was like you
had her on a dimmer switch, full bright-
ness to barely gloaming.
It was remarkable how comprehen-
sively Sasnovich turned the match
around. Raducanu made the error of
coming out for the second set without
the sharpness that she had
finished the first and Sasnovich
pounced.
Learning your trade in the
public eye, as Raducanu is, can
only be hard. Your every set-
back is monitored. For Radu-
canu, those seem to grow in
number to the point that
after this defeat she was
asked “if the way you deal
with losing changed,
evolved or improved over
the last few months?”
Yet however you assess
this particular loss, huge
credit must go to Sasnovich.
The power and accuracy of
her assault on Raducanu in
that second set was aston-
ishing. During the match

she hit 45 winners, which is a very

high level. Raducanu hit only 17.

The point, though, is that what-

ever Raducanu tried Sasnov-

ich had an answer.

The second set drifted

fast as the power dropped

off Raducanu’s first serve

and she started looking

tired. Then suddenly, at

the start of the third,

there was an uprising.

The key game in this

match was at 1-1 in the third

set. Just for this one game,

Raducanu’s tennis resem-

McEnroe criticism

adds to the pain

for lost Raducanu

bled her form from the first set: aggres-

sive, accurate, fizzing. She earned

herself five break points; she tossed

away one of them but Sasnovich

defended the other four masterfully.

That was it, though. Her defiance was

done. The final four games vanished in

a trice. French Open over.

So you could certainly put this end to

Raducanu’s fourth grand slam down to

Sasnovich and her high quality. You

must, also, identify the way that Radu-

canu’s energy sapped. This, we under-

stand, is part of the maturing process:

building a physique that can endure the

toils of an event like this. It was only two

days ago that she edged through after

another three-set match, so fatigue

may have accumulated.

Yet experts also wonder about this.

As Naomi Cavaday, the former British

professional, asked: “Is she being

fuelled enough?”

Somewhere in there, also, is tech-

nique. The numbers, again, tell a story:

Sasnovich hit 23 winners off her fore-

hand; Raducanu only three. Raducanu

lined up numerous forehand winners

and too often hit them long; too often,

also, her forehand was the tee-up for a

Sasnovich attack.

That could be just part of the devel-

opment, particularly on the clay which

was a new surface to her. Yet here you

wonder about the coaching, or the fact

that Raducanu has no full-time coach

and, at least for the moment, appears

determined not to.

All of this is part of the deal of being

a surprise grand-slam winner — this

poring over of performance and the

fascination from outside. Yesterday’s

defeat, for instance, was followed by

this assessment from John McEnroe:

“If I won the US Open having gone

through qualifying, I wouldn’t change

my coach for the next year, so I don’t

understand that move. Obviously her

parents are involved and they know

more than I know. But this idea of a

revolving door of coaches I don’t think

is good for any player, much less so for

a player at this stage of her career.”

Raducanu, meanwhile, insists that

she is working things out slowly as she

goes. When assessing her situation yes-

terday, she sounded a little like other

frustrated athletes saying that she is do-

ing really well in practice and that she is

just waiting for that to translate on to

the court. “It might not show like

straight away,” she said. She also said

that “I think some parts of my tennis

game have actually improved com-

pared to last year” which was an inter-

esting use of the word “actually”.

She also pointed out where she was a

year ago, playing on the British Tour in

a £25 entry-fee event at the Connaught

Club in Essex. In that context, her

progress remains miraculous.

Back then she could make all her mis-

takes in private, comparatively. Now,

her search for another version of last

September’s glory is being conducted in

the relentless public eye. It is hard not to

conclude that she has often looked a

little lost, that she, and those who guide

her, have made some wrong turns.

Her sights are now set on Wimble-

don — and that is when every move will

be watched even more intensely.

Steep decline

How Raducanu deteriorated through

the match

First serve points won

1st set

2nd set

3rd set

61%

52%

44%

Break points won

2nd set: N/A (0 out of 0)

3rd set (0 out of 5)

0%

100%

1st set (2 out of 2)

Receiving points won

1st set

2nd set

3rd set

42%

14%

36%

Raducanu since the start

of Wimbledon 2021

12

Present ranking

46

Matches

30

Wins

16

Losses

1

Title (US Open,

2021)

109

Average ranking

of opponents

beaten

103

Average ranking

of opponents

lost to

Win over

highest-ranked

opponent

v Belinda

Bencic, No 12

(US Open, 2021

quarter-final)

Loss to highest-

ranked

opponent

v Iga Swiatek,

No 1 (Stuttgart

Open, 2022

quarter-final)

Win/loss ratio

against top 40-

ranked players

2 wins/3 losses

Sasnovich took advantage

of Raducanu’s dip in form