Emma Raducanu has seen a sports psychologist and it is working well

For the past six months I've been criticising Emma Raducanu because she's simply not shown the right mental approach to top-standard professional tennis. She found excuses for not winning and I believe that she suffered from anxiety which resulted in a kind of hypochondria about her physical well-being. She had many physical ailments and on one occasion was breathless. Anxiety, I say. 

I put it down to the pressure of expectation on her performance following her unique 2021 US Open win. The pressure of expectation from the public and commenters can be very burdensome and intolerable.

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Update next day 7th July 2024, playing Lulu Sun. Emma lost in 3 sets because she was expected by all to win because Sun is a qualifier. The pressure was back on her and she didn't play quite so well or with the same level of freedom she employed in beating Sakkari (ranked as high as 3 recently) in the previous match. Raducanu suffers in my opinion with expectation management problems and other emotional issues and her sports psychologist I am pretty sure is working on that. But her performance against Sun shows us that Raducanu's mental issues are deep seated.

Raducanu needed treatment on her left knee after a fall in the third set but the real story of this match was her timid approach and Sun's fearless play. She hit 52 winners - with Rafael Nadal-like whipped forehand hurting Raducanu more than her slip on the grass. -- Daily Express. She lost her boldness and her frailties returned. It is inherent in her. She fluked the 2021 win. Got lucky.

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Emma Raducanu has seen a sports psychologist and it is working well. Image: MikeB

All in all it was a sorry picture and her ranking in women's tennis was worse than it was when she won the 2021 U.S. Open as a qualifier.

The world No. 9 used her pre-match press conference to remind Raducanu that she was facing a top-10 player ahead of their third-round Wimbledon clash. But that didn't bother the Brit, who needed 92 minutes to pull off the upset and beat Sakkari 6-2 6-3. - Daily Express newspaper today 6th July 2024.

But, at the moment, she is playing at Wimbledon 2024 and doing remarkably well. She has recaptured that energy and joie de vivre in playing tennis. She is playing aggressively and boldly. That is the kind of tennis she employed when she won the 2021 U.S. Open. I can remember Tim Henman, who was on the side lines during the final, encouraging her to continue to be bold in her play. It's that kind of boldness and freedom of playing which can be highly successful and certainly was in her case.

It's about not thinking too much about the game. It's about letting one's natural talents and instincts take over. It's getting into the "zone" as the experts call it. When things just flow and your body takes over and the brain is pushed out of the equation. You don't want to think too much when you play professional sport as the brain can get in the way.

And I strongly sense that Emma Raducanu has been seeing a top sport psychologist to rectify what I would see as an incorrect mentality as a top tennis professional. Her mentality now seems to be good. Sport psychologists can work wonders. There are no hard reports to support my assertion but I am certain that she has altered her mentality through the services of a good sports psychologist.

Jannik Sinner has seen a sport psychologist and his game improved substantially. In fact, the default situation regarding a team of experts supporting top professional sportsmen should include a sport psychologist. This is the norm now. It is not exceptional although it was once in the past.

It is a recognition of the fact that sport psychology is vital to success. The attitude, mental approach, confidence and mental well-being of a sports person is vital to their success in their profession. It's as important as the mechanics of the serve or the mechanics of the forehand or backhand. It is as important as the footwork. There's the physical side to tennis and the mental side.

No matter how good you are physically and how talented you are, you will not win consistently and win championships without the correct mental approach.

I am hopeful, and I believe, that Emma Raducanu will now progress normally as she has deserved to do and start to win some competitions. She may even win Wimbledon this year but that would seem to be unlikely at present but certainly possible in the future. 

But with her mind freed of those unnecessary burdens - mental baggage - perhaps mainly through the pressure of expectation, she can now progress and it will be the first time this has happened since she won in 2021.

P.S. From Google Gemini:

There is no public confirmation that Emma Raducanu has worked with a specific sports psychologist. However, there is evidence that she likely has benefited from some form of mental training:

• Sports psychology experts commenting on her game: Several sports psychologists have weighed in on Raducanu's performances in the media, discussing the mental challenges young athletes face and how those challenges might apply to her. This suggests that mental training is a recognized aspect of tennis at her level.
• The importance of mental training in tennis: Tennis places significant mental demands on players, requiring focus, pressure management, and emotional control. It's common for professional tennis players to incorporate mental training into their routines.

Even without confirmation of a specific sports psychologist, it's likely that Raducanu receives some form of mental coaching as part of her overall training regimen.

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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.

Emma Raducanu should wear a glove

Yes, I know that this is nothing to do with cats! But I have run out of things to say about cats so that's it. And I've thought about Emma Raducanu on and off for a while. I've concluded that she should wear a glove on her right hand. It would be a kangaroo skin glove of the same type worn by professional golfers.

The reason why I have suggested this is because in the past, as you might remember, she has suffered from blisters to her right hand. This is are going to be a problem for a tennis player who is not playing a lot of competitive tennis which would apply to Emma Raducanu.

After her last early round defeat she went home to lick her wounds and re-evaluate what she's doing. I decided that she's going to retire within 24 months. That might be a bit cruel and incorrect but I sense that is the way things are drifting.

There are no rules against tennis players wearing a glove to protect their playing hand. It makes sense to me. Nadal doesn't wear a glove but he wears white tape on his fingers. Some golfers actually also put tape on their fingers to protect them.

Kangaroo skin gloves are very high quality. They allow the player to maintain feel through the glove. They help the hand to grip the club. It makes playing golf more comfortable and I would suggest more tennis player should also where a kangaroo skin glove.

It would certainly entirely protect her right hand against blisters. It would be another step towards minimising injuries for which Emma Raducanu has become famous. I don't think the pro tennis lifestyle suits her actually. 

And I mean both physically and emotionally. She's talented but looking at her now I don't see her being any better than a lot of middle ranking women tennis players.

She suggested she might drop down to a lower tier in order to get more competitive playing time. She's not done that. If she did, I would suggest that she would never get out of that tier. I think it would be a bad idea but it may be the only idea.

Emma Raducanu will not wear a glove as I have suggested because she probably thinks it looks like she's admitted to the world that she has delicate hands or something. It's almost a sign of weakness because nobody else wears them. 

But I would recommend it and she could even brand the glove and market it. Make it a big thing and show it off. Be bold about it. That would help silence any critics.

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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.

Emma Raducanu laughs as a ginger tabby cat interrupts the commencement of her Abu Dhabi Open match

I am able to combine Emma Raducanu, who I have written about recently when I predicted that she'd retire from professional tennis within 2 years and a cat! It's hard to do that in a video but we have one here from the Daily Motion website. It is no big deal. 

The only query I have is how did a cat get onto the tennis court at a professional tournament at the commencement of play when there are players on court and spectators in the stands?

Does this indicate that there are lots of stray cats in Abu Dhabi or that the management of the tournament is a little slack? Or perhaps it was just bad luck. Maybe it was good luck as it made Raducanu laugh. 

I have seen her look sad too often after losing matches in the early round of recent tournaments. She has not progressed beyond round two so far this year; her first campaign after her three operations - two on her wrists and one on her foot. She has returned to the UK to practice. I think she's returned to also discuss her future as a pro tennis player. It is not working out. She is way off the mark to beat the top 10 players.

This is an embedded video which means that it may stop working as I have no control over its presence on this website.

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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.

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.

Update 19th May: She has withdrawn from qualifying for the French Open! Not reason given. She had to qualify as she is ranked 212 which is less than it was when she won the US Open in 2021. She is going backwards. There are numerous other instances of a lack of commitment.

Search for 'Raducanu' on this site to see more articles about here.

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.