Emma Raducanu determined to rediscover her joy at Wimbledon as she opens up on trust and embracing art class to bring out her creative side on the court

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Even in the calmer periods of the tennis calendar, Emma Raducanu lives her life under a burning glare. When Wimbledon rolls around, that stare becomes like Tolkien's Eye of Sauron: unlidded, unblinking, unrelenting.
'It is a big occasion every year, something that brings a lot of excitement,' says the British No 1. 'That buzz of winning at Wimbledon, not much beats it. At the same time, you do feel a bit of pressure.'
In such moments, it matters who you have around you, and Raducanu is grateful to have a team - led by coach Mark Petchey - that she can trust.
'You're not going to feel so comfortable all the time,' says Raducanu. 'To have those moments where you open up and show a bit of vulnerability, you only want to do that with people you can trust.
'Having that when everything is heightened is very helpful. Sometimes maybe your behaviour isn't perfect, you need to let certain things out, and it's very helpful to know they're not going to take it personally.'
It has not always been the case. Raducanu spoke to Mail Sport in Rome this year about the difficulty she finds in trusting people, and returned to the theme here.
'At times it just felt like I couldn't speak out because I didn't want what I said to be shared and spoken about and gossiped,' she says. 'You know how Chinese whispers go, it's exaggerated and twisted. So I just preferred to keep everything in and that is not necessarily the best thing because when you're on court, you're holding a lot in rather than being expressive, and that's when I'm at my best.'
For a reminder of when Raducanu has been at her expressive best here, we can look back to her debut in 2021.
It is easy to forget - given the US Open title which quickly followed - how magical that run to the fourth round was. For a nation reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic and political upheaval, the 18-year-old Raducanu fell from the skies like a drop of pure innocence and joy in a time of cynicism and sadness.
What captured the British public was not so much Raducanu's effortless tennis but her smile. She walked out with a smile, she played with a smile and she won with a smile. Life has not always been kind to her since then. Injuries, stalkers and more injuries. For the third time in a row she enters a Grand Slam nursing a back injury - but she is determined to smile through the pain.
'I want to embody that joy,' she says when asked about Wimbledon 2021. 'I've recently realised that what we do, it's for such a short amount of time and it will go before we know it.
'I was listening to Ana Ivanovic (former world No 1) say she wished she had enjoyed it more. Sometimes I look at the future and think, "Oh my god, am I going to regret not enjoying this moment?"
'I'm 22 now, so I'm living for that person to not have any regrets to look back on. I want to bring joy to what I do and enjoy this time, because it's going to go by really fast.'
For Raducanu, joy on the court can only come with joy off the court - time in which she can take her mind off tennis. Her future mixed doubles partner Carlos Alcaraz winds down with party trips to Ibiza but Raducanu is more book club than nightclub.
She is taking an art history class - more on that later - and her latest read is Zero to One by Peter Thiel, a book subtitled: notes on startups or how to build the future.
It feels appropriate. Coach Petchey said at the French Open his mantra to Raducanu is: forget the US Open, your career starts now. Back to zero - now it's time to build the future.
'It's the mental shift of not trying to compare every result to winning a Grand Slam,' explains Raducanu. 'It's difficult to get my head around and bring my expectations a little bit down, because I'm like: "Well, I've achieved that. Why can't I achieve this?" That's the hardest internal debate that I have in my mind and that's I think maybe where Mark gets that idea from.'
Back to art history. 'I'm doing a one-year course,' Raducanu says. 'It gives me something different to do. My subjects at school were quantitative - maths and economics - art history is completely different. You challenge your brain to think in ways it is not used to. It's really fascinating.'
As well as developing an appreciation for the impressionists - Claude Monet is her favourite - Raducanu feels her study of art will help bring out her creative side on the court.
'I grew up very boxed into a way of thinking: maths and logic, ABC,' she says. 'Over the last few years I figured out what I actually enjoy. When I play my best, I'm free, I'm enjoying it. I don't have to be so serious and "on" all the time. On court if you're laughing, it can be seen as unserious, but actually for me I'm probably gonna play better than if I'm putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect.'
And so we come back to where we started: to pressure, and to feeling joy on the court. Expectations are low for Raducanu going into Wimbledon - at least they ought to be, given her back issue and the presence of world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in her section of the draw. But the biggest lesson she can learn from 2021 is that if she can find her smile again, anything is possible.