Emma Raducanu withdraws from French Open qualifying

Emma Raducanu has belatedly clarified her reasons for withdrawing from next week’s French Open qualifying event, saying that she needs a “healthy block” of training in order to avoid injury over the rest of the season.

Early on Sunday morning, Raducanu’s name disappeared from the French Open’s qualifying entry list, causing confusion and consternation among her fans. Had she developed a new fitness issue?

Around lunchtime, the explanation arrived. “It’s important for me to keep laying on the foundations,” said Raducanu in a statement, “and I will use the time to do a healthy block before the grass and subsequent hard-court seasons to give myself a chance to keep fit for the rest of the year.”

It had always seemed likely that this was a strategic move rather than a late change of heart, given that Raducanu has recently been hitting on hard courts, both indoors and outdoors. (The Wimbledon grass courts might have been preferable, but they do not open until next week.)

But while training blocks have their place, Raducanu’s lack of appetite for matchplay seems surprising. She has only played 16 matches to date this season and just 67 in total since she won the US Open more than two-and-a-half years ago. A natural competitor like world No1 Iga Swiatek would expect to get through more than 70 matches in a season.

During a Sky TV broadcast last month, the possibility was raised that Raducanu – who had just been thumped in the first round of Madrid by a little-known Argentine – might not play again until the grass.

At the time, Anne Keothavong, who happens to be Raducanu’s Billie Jean King Captain as well as a pundit, sounded sceptical. “It’s a number of weeks between now and the first grass-court event,” mused Keothavong. “That’s a long training block and she’s already had eight months off on the sidelines.”

In the same interview on Sky Sports, Keothavong said that she had been disappointed by Raducanu’s talk of being exhausted after that Madrid thrashing at the hands of Maria Lourdes Carle.

In her assessment of that match on April 24 – which remains the last time we saw Raducanu in action – Keothavong said “We talk a lot about head, heart and legs, and if your head and your heart aren’t in it, your legs don’t stand a chance. It was really disappointing to see. She said she was tired, but do you talk yourself into more tiredness?”

In early April, Raducanu had shown some encouraging form at the Billie Jean King Cup tie in Le Portel, carrying Great Britain to a surprise victory over France with back-to-back victories over Caroline Garcia and Diane Parry.

She then played well on the indoor clay of Stuttgart, taking world No 1 Iga Swiatek to a tie-break. But since the Carlé match she has been absent from the match court for almost a month, and now seems likely to spend another fortnight waiting for the grass season to begin.

It remains to be seen how many tournaments Raducanu will enter in the UK, but the first available match play would be at the second-tier event in Surbiton which starts on June 2.

By declining to play at Roland Garros, Raducanu forfeits the chance to improve a ranking which remains stranded at No 212. The complicated rules of the WTA Tour also state that it will leave her with an automatic zero in one of her 18 tournament fields - a possible handicap later in the year.

In an interview this weekend, Raducanu made waves by saying that female tennis players are often more skilful than male ones, before going on to describe the pay gap between the sexes as “huge” and unfair.

She also said that “Life starts after tennis. I am actually looking forward to the next chapter, which is funny to say at this age, but there are so many things I want to do in this life and I just don’t have enough time.”