Emma Raducanu must draw on 2021's great transformation to rebuild confidence

As Emma Raducanu concludes her disrupted build-up to Wimbledon, she can take encouragement from memories of 2021: the summer when she went from calling her own lines to being interviewed by Sue Barker in the space of just six weeks.

Admittedly, Raducanu has only been able to play 33 minutes of competitive grass-court tennis this summer, because of the side strain that befell her in Nottingham. But if you look at her build-up to Wimbledon last year, it featured one of the most dramatic transformations in sporting history.

“That mindset of just picking yourself up when you feel like you're at the lowest of the low [is important],” Raducanu told reporters last month. “A year ago I lost in the second round of a British Tour event. My head was in the bin but then I got back up and I had a great grass season.”

Here is a memory to reflect on when she takes the court on Monday, searching for the last-minute inspiration that could carry her to victory over a tough opponent: Belgium’s grass-court expert Alison Van Uytvanck.

Last summer, it all happened so quickly. Between May 22 and June 30, Raducanu flipped from playing – and losing – in what the Americans call the “bush leagues” to outperforming major finalists at tennis’s most historic event.

The whole story is one of those joyful fables of sporting interconnectedness, like a Test batsman scoring a duck in a village match, or a golfing hacker landing a hole in one at St Andrews. It highlights the connection between grass roots and elite competition – while reminding us that the distance is not always as gigantic as it might seem.

There were no reporters at the three-day British Tour event which Raducanu entered in late May, as she searched for a first competitive match since the previous December. But there is a YouTube recording of her entire semi-final against Katie Barnes, courtesy of an enthusiast who goes under the nom de plume “London Tennis Tube”. He held a single camera pointing down a hard court at the Connaught Club in Chingford, Essex, while offering sotto-voce commentary so as not to disturb the players.

This was a match played without ballboys, line judges or spectators. Without even a chair umpire, so that Raducanu and Barnes had to call their own lines and keep the score by turning over the tiny flip-cards hanging from the net-cord.

Dressed in a white shirt and black leggings, Raducanu began the match with three double-faults in the first game. Meanwhile loud grunts and obscenities floated over from the men on the court next door, who would surely have been dumbstruck by the idea that they were playing alongside tennis royalty in the making.

Among the smattering of comments left on the YouTube page is one that states “This is extraordinary. To go from this to US Open champ in 112 days, must be 1,000,000 to 1.” The standard was indeed so unexceptional that, if this match had happened on a Saturday afternoon at the tennis club at the end of your road, you would barely have paused to look at it.

Barnes took the first set 6-1 against a Raducanu so rusty that she spent most of her time retrieving balls from the bottom of the net. To get a sense of the level involved, this is the same Katie Barnes – an unranked Futures wannabe a year older than her opponent – who had lost to 12-year-old Hannah Klugman at the previous week’s British Tour event in Woking.

The second set saw a revival from Raducanu. Looking back at the video now, you can see her picking up her racket in a note-perfect preparation pose as soon as the ball crosses the net. The butterfly was starting to emerge from the chrysalis.

But then, with the match tied up at 6-1, 1-6, Barnes left the court for a six-minute bathroom break. A ten-point super tie-break ensued, now under the watchful eye of tournament referee Ed Bradford. In a chaotic melange of double-faults, shanks and at least one dodgy line call, Barnes went away victorious by ten points to eight – the smallest possible margin.

Raducanu didn’t brood for for long. As recounted in Mike Dickson’s book “Emma Raducanu: When Tennis Came Home”, she collected her £75 prize-money cheque, and proceeded to Felixstowe for the next British Tour event, where normal service was resumed as she lifted the title without dropping a set.

The upward trend that began in Felixstowe would top out in New York on Sept 11. Yet it was the Connaught Club that Raducanu remembered – quite unprompted – when reporters spoke to her in Madrid in May. A “memories” reminder had just popped up on her phone from 12 months earlier, showing a picture of her entering the exam hall for her final A-level test.

“It's funny because that afternoon [after the test] I went to go hit some balls because I had to get ready very quickly for the grass season,” explained Raducanu, whose reaction to finishing her exams failed to fit the teenage stereotype of downing a homemade cocktail and then jumping in the river.

“I didn't play tennis for like two months. So I was like, ‘Wow, I've got I've got a few weeks to get myself in shape to play my first WTA at Nottingham.’

“I actually played a British Tour event at the Connaught Club the week after my exams,” added Raducanu, who had to pay £25 to enter. “I lost a match and I was really considering what was going on. And then, the week after, I got back up so and played another British Tour and managed to win. It was very ugly but I won it.”

Ugly, perhaps, but a vital staging post. And a reminder of how quickly fortunes can turn in this peculiar sport. After a chastening few months, Raducanu would do well to remember that lesson on Monday.