Prediction that Emma Raducanu will retire from professional tennis within 24 months

Emma Raducanu. See base of page for credit.

This is very obliquely about animals only insofar as that Emma Raducanu has a companion dog and she loves her dog. And I believe that it is entirely possible that she will be spending a lot more time with her dog in the not too distant future based upon what I have read today in the newspaper.

I hope anybody who reads this (very few 😎) will bear with me because it's not about cats! It's about something which has come into my head and like perhaps millions of others I've been following Emma Raducanu's progress both before and since her three operations.

She has a health protected world ranking of 103 and she's just got back to full-time professional tennis and it's not going well. She was full of expectation saying that she felt 'light' meaning she had lost the burden of being a major champion with the incumbent expectations.

"Move aside Emma Raducanu, Great Britain has a new tennis star in Katie Boutler" - News media headline today March 5th 2024 which must hurt Raducanu. It must further demotivate her I am afraid.

Commitment?

Her recent exploit was in the prestigious Qatar Open. Stuart Fraser, the tennis correspondent for The Times newspaper says that her preparation for the Qatar Open was poor. Rather than travelling to Qatar to acclimatise herself to the conditions and the courts, she stayed in Dubai and attended an event at a luxury hotel with Naomi Campbell, the supermodel. She is highly marketable and her portfolio of commercial endorsements are worth an estimated 12 million (annually, I believe).

"I think that it's hard for me to get used to the tour schedule" - Emma Raducanu.

But her commercial marketing it is claimed has interfered with her preparations for tennis tournaments which she claims is unfair criticism. But rather than practising in Doha she only managed to fit in a short Sunday afternoon hit after rain had caused disruption to her court schedules.

She lost 6-0, 7-6 in the first round of the Qatar Open. It was not an example of progress on her path back from being ranked number 262 in the world. Her target is to be within the top 10 as she once was after her spectacular US Open win.

Raducanu's signature is very dense and obliterated. I am not sure what it says if anything about her character. Image: Wikipedia.

But here's the problem. She had a bad match with 48 unforced errors to her opponent's 22. She claimed that she was struggling with everything including the conditions. She said that she couldn't see the ball properly and that's because she hadn't practised on outside courts under similar conditions to acclimatise herself to it. This to me shows a lack of commitment I regret to say.

In disarray

And she's decided to return home to practice rather than go on to play at next week's WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai under a wildcard exemption. Next month there is the Sunshine Swing of America tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami. She considered dropping down to the tier below to get more tennis practice and to start winning competitions or matches at least.

But her thinking seems to be in disarray. She's not sure what to do. This is indicated in what she said:

"I think I'm just going to go home and practice, and we'll see where I go from there. It's hard for me to get used to the tour schedule. It's just tournament back, tournament straight away, so I think that I need to schedule my tournaments a little better, as well as just trying to get some more matches under my belt."

Very flat statement. A very uncommitted statement. The words, I would argue, of a person who is somewhat lost about what to do and how to achieve her goals. And indicative of a person whose not happy playing pro tennis. I wonder if she has gone home to discuss her future in pro tennis as her attitude looks very flat and demotivated.

And in the past - last year - she has demonstrated that she struggles physically to play pro tennis week in week out. Her body tends to breakdown. I feel that her body is not robust enough.

Future looks bad

I personally am very negative about her future. I don't think she will get back into the top 10. I don't think she will make much progress at all because while she's been away the other women tennis players have improved such as Anna Kalinskaya ranked 38. She is a great player. Competition is more difficult. And I don't think she likes the lifestyle of a professional tennis player either.

I also believe that her win at the US Open was somewhat fortuitous because she was playing against a line of people who were not ranked that highly. That was pure luck. And at the time she was in great form; somewhat innocently just expressing her love of tennis without feeling the pressure so much.

After she won that prestigious tennis event she felt the pressure and I think it's taken away a lot of the gloss and fun of tennis for her.

I have a strong feeling that she does not have the desire to be a professional tennis player because she's complained before about the tennis professional's lifestyle. You don't hear this sort of complaint from any other woman professional tennis player that I can see. They just get on with it.

These days she looks like an average professional female tennis player. Not in anyway exceptional. Her ranking around 250 is correct. McEnroe has commented that she has a huge task to climb the ranks. He was implying that she won't make it.

Unhappy? Money

She looks unhappy too. It is hidden in forced smiles.

She's made a lot of money. I don't know how much but it must be upwards of £50 million perhaps more even. She does not need to play tennis or indeed work at all again in her lifetime.

She can go home, be with her dog, be with her family and enjoy life. She has won a major tennis tournament. She has achieved a lot. What more does she need to prove? I think that question enters her mind. 

Perhaps she wants to prove to herself that winning the U.S. Open wasn't a fluke. She doesn't want to be a one trick pony. She wants to be a genuine classy professional tennis player but I think she's learned that her heart is not in it and it makes her unhappy which why I think she will retire within 24 months. The pro tennis life is not for her and I believe this has dawned on her.

P.S. I think she'll retire even if she reads this and wants to disprove me. The pull to stop will be too strong.

Media

News media are making matters worse for Emma because there's so much news media chatter about her because of her exceptional US Open win being the only player male or female to win as a qualifier. The media can't leave her alone which means added pressure. She's trying to escape the inescapable conclusion that her US Open win was a bit fluky.

The Times

Matthew Syed, the respected Times journalist and former champion table tennis player, has, indirectly, supported what I am saying in this article. He says that her recent poor defeat must be a wake-up call. He calls it a "career-defining wake-up call". He says that there are now no excuses for losing as in the past she has had injuries resulting in losses and she has indirectly blamed coaching for her failures.

He adds that, "It will be obvious to her most ardent fans - and hopefully to Raducanu herself - that this has nothing to do with injury....If her goal is to be the best player she can be, she is emphatically not travelling that road". Those who focus on the commercial side of sport openly acknowledge that she is diminishing her brand. He adds that "that a sporting career is scarily short" and that "this is her time, her chance to push on to glimpse the preciousness of the few years ahead."

He urges her to seize the moment and I sense that he is urging her to commit to being the best she can be. And this is what I'm saying. She appears to be lacking commitment at the moment because I don't think her heart is truly in the professional tennis player's lifestyle.

Sponsors

I also predict that she'll lose most of her lucrative sponsor deals over the coming 12 months. She'll become an average journeyman pro going nowhere. The celeb life will be over soon.

Katie Boulter

Katie Boulter has just won the San Diego Open which is her second ATP win and puts her in the top 30. She has taken on the role of the best British player and this must be demoralising for Raducanu whose all but forgotten languishing in the mid-200s or whatever. She is finished. Sorry but that is the reality.

Photo credit: By si.robi - Raducanu WMQ18 (16), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71047731

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.