The head of the Auckland tournament where Emma Raducanu injured her ankle yesterday has rejected her claims that the courts were slippery, insisting they were “fit to play”.
The 20-year-old is in a race to be fit for the Australian Open, which begins a week on Monday, after rolling her ankle at the ASB Classic. She was in tears as she approached the net to prematurely shake the hand of her second-round opponent Viktoria Kuzmova. She had attempted to play on after having her left ankle heavily strapped by the tournament physio at the start of the third set but could only last one more point.
The injury was sustained on an indoor hard court after play was moved because of persistent rain outside. At 5-5 in the second set, Raducanu ran to her right to hit a forehand from several metres behind the baseline but slipped on the court as she tried to change direction back to her left.
She struggled to move after this and eventually decided that she was in no condition to see out the match. She described the injury as “difficult to take” and said that the courts were “very slippery”.
However, the tournament director Nicolas Lamperin has said that the courts were approved by the WTA supervisor. “We are obviously very sorry about Emma’s injury,” Lamperin said. “Every player works really hard in the off-season and that’s not what you expect when you play a tournament in week one.
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“However, injuries happen all the time and it could have happened on outdoor courts as well. We feel [sorry] about the situation but we also say these courts are fit to play.
“First of all, I want to make sure she’s OK. I understand the frustration. It’s ten days ahead of the Australian Open. She’s coming from a season with a lot of injuries, so of course this is something which creates frustration.”
It is not yet clear of the full extent of what appears to be an ankle sprain. The recovery time will depend on the severity of the damage but regardless, it is difficult to see how she can be fully fit for the start of the Australian Open in Melbourne in 11 days.
“It’s difficult to take,” Raducanu told the New Zealand media organisation Stuff. “I’ve put a lot of physical work in the last few months and I’ve been feeling good and optimistic. So to be stopped by a freak injury, rolling an ankle, is pretty disappointing — in the first week as well. I thought I was playing some pretty decent tennis.
“The courts are incredibly slick, like very slippery, so to be honest it’s not a surprise that this happened to someone. It’s out of my control, and after a very long day of waiting around. But we’ll assess over the next few days and see what the next steps are.”
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This is clearly a bitter blow for Raducanu, who had spent most of the off-season working on her fitness with Andy Murray’s former physical trainer, Jez Green, after a series of issues last year. There had been questions surrounding the 20-year-old’s strength and conditioning for the rigours of the WTA Tour given that she recorded four mid-match retirements in 2021, but a roll of her ankle at an untimely moment cannot be seen as anything other than desperately unlucky.
Presently ranked No 78 in the world, Raducanu faces the prospect of falling further down the rankings if she cannot compete at the Australian Open. The failure to defend the 70 points she earned for reaching the second round last year could mean she drops to around No 85 depending on other results.
The early stages of this match had been extremely encouraging with Melbourne in mind. Raducanu took less than half an hour to claim the opening set without losing a game against Kuzmova, the world No 134 from Slovakia. In complete control, she landed 81 per cent of her first serves and hit eight winners to only three unforced errors.
The turning point came in the second set when a sudden blip meant Raducanu dropped her serve to go 3-2 down. This gave Kuzmova hope of a comeback and she served out the set at the second time of asking at 6-5 after tightening up on her first opportunity at 5-4.
In the final few minutes of the second set, Raducanu was clearly hampered in her movement after her fall. She requested a visit from the tournament physio before the deciding set and took a long medical timeout. When she winced in pain after hitting her first serve of the third set and made no effort to chase down a Kuzmova groundstroke to her left, it was clear that she could not continue.
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Visibly upset, Raducanu was accompanied by her new coach, Sebastian Sachs, and personal physio, Will Herbert, as she limped off the court. Both will have a key role to play in managing her preparations for the Australian Open if she is cleared for an attempt at recovering for it.
It seems that Raducanu may live to regret her decision to play an individual WTA Tour event in Auckland rather than the United Cup team competition in Sydney. While she did successfully battle back from a set down against the talented Czech teenager Linda Fruhvirtova in the first round, her next match against Kuzmova was delayed by 24 hours because of the inclement weather and eventually played on a dark indoor court in front of no more than a dozen people. This was hardly ideal preparation for Melbourne, where temperatures can often reach the mid-30s under the blazing sun in the middle of the day.
As a grand-slam champion, Raducanu is likely to have commanded an appearance fee of up to £100,000 for committing to Auckland. But she may ponder whether the experience would have been more enjoyable alongside her compatriots in a mixed-team environment at the United Cup, where the likes of Cameron Norrie and Harriet Dart helped Great Britain reach the effective quarter-finals.
“Auckland overall, it rained a lot this week, so I didn’t get to see much and I thought maybe certain aspects could have been organised better,” Raducanu said. “But overall I had pleasant support when playing outdoors and the crowd made me feel really welcome and at home.”
Meanwhile, there are also doubts surrounding the participation of Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open. The two-times champion, who has battled mental health issues in recent years, has not entered any warm-up events and posted a photograph on social media from a Los Angeles pilates studio on Wednesday. The 25-year-old remains on the Melbourne entry list as it stands but organisers have received no details on her potential arrival.
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Novak Djokovic recovered from a slow start to reach the quarter-finals of the Adelaide International. The nine-times Australian Open champion was 5-2 down in the first set to France’s Quentin Halys before fighting back for a 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-5) win.
