Raducanu Exits Early Again

[Stickybottle]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/60489845

This time with a hip injury

Will she ever regain her US Open form ?
Hope the halcyon days are not already over at such a young age

[ToraToraTora]

SB: "Of course you do
Because I have differing opinions to you
Pmsl !" - well it's not about opinions. You claim to be conservative but attack them every day, you claim to back Brexit yet you support anyone but UK in any given situation.

//PS
I have served my country so I am obviously more British than you will ever be
Get over it ! Lol "// - So you have to have been in the forces to be "British" then? right oh! you know nothing about me what I have done for all sorts of areas so stop it with the "I've been in the forces" cobras.
You say one thing we all observe a different person. The person you purport to be is the sort of person I'd normally get on with The persona you exude publicly is like a cross between between Agent Cobb and the Abacus...hang on!

[jim360]

Of course, it may well be that NJ is correct, but the future is unknowable. At the very least, it seems pretty clear that somebody who has won a Slam once, while hardly guaranteed to do so again, is in a better position to claim that they can win Slams than somebody who never has.

Incidentally, let's leave politics and personal quarrels out of this, please.

[jim360]

// Doesnt mean she wont have a good tennis career although looking as stunning as she does it may be better to go the 'model' route. //

Presumably it's better to go the route that she derives happiness from, which right now is tennis.

[Stickybottle]

TTT
You say one thing we all observe a different person. The person you purport to be is the sort of person I'd normally get on with
———-
Lol !
What an exclusive club that must be !
I shall gladly decline your invitation
Good luck finding some though
Pmsl

[Ellipsis]

What is she, twenty now? Around the age Andy Murray was when he had a lot of injury and fitness problems before he really got going. Also her weirdo stalker has just been sent down, which can't have helped her mindset in the past few months. Give her a break, she may do very well again.

[New Judge]

//Give her a break, she may do very well again.//

I hope she does. But, as stupid as it may seem, I believe she won't. I've been following tennis for as long as I can remember. I can usually tell when a young player will make it big and when they will not. The only one I called wrong was Andy Murray. I had a £50 bet with a pal that he would never win a Grand Slam. My pal suggested we should make a cut off date for the bet to mature, so we chose the beginning of the 2012 (London) Olympics. I won my bet but I was wrong about Mr Murray. To my pal's extreme annoyance he won his first slam in September 2012 (the US Open) just a few weeks after the Olympics.

I may be wrong about Ms Raducanu and I hope I am. But somehow I think I won't be.

[jim360]

She's been 19 since November, so barely three months into her last year as a teenager.

There's no sense pretending that last night's result wasn't seriously disappointing, especially because at least at one point Emma was serving for the match, so it's a clear opportunity missed. Still, I have to say that from what I saw at the US Open she seemed OK -- lots of rust then, but one win over Sloane Stephens and then a gutsy performance while having a seriously hampering blister that took away both her serve and forehand.

Obviously there can't be an excuse for every loss or disappointment for arbitrarily long into her career. But it's equally frustrating that such a result prompts some people to write her off. Apparently, becoming the first and only qualifier since 1968 to win a Slam is just a lucky blip, rather than a testament to her ability. Yes, no doubt there was some luck involved, but she made her own luck by playing well and just outplaying all-comers for ten straight matches; to say nothing of her decent runs at smaller tournaments.

The real issue is that, unlike most up-and-coming youngsters, she's being blooded at high-profile tournaments rather than on the lower circuits where barely anybody apart from obsessive tennis fans would notice. No doubt this is why she chose to play here rather than in Doha, for instance.

[jim360]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that NJ didn't see Raducanu's US Open triumph coming, nor for that matter Leylah Fernandez's own remarkable run on the other side of the draw, nor Swiatek's victory in the 2020 French Open, nor Krejcikova's the following year, etc etc.

Especially in the women's game, tennis is too unpredictable to be able to say with confidence who will succeed. We can perhaps have good ideas, eg amongst the current crop of under-18 players who have largely escaped notice, there are at least half a dozen exciting players from the Czech Republic alone, and a good handful more besides that are worth keeping an eye on. But in as much as I'll be able to predict which are successful, it's only because I can name so many that I'm bound to be right about at least one of them. But not by skill.

I'd expect, all the same, that it'll take another couple of years before Raducanu can seriously challenge at Slams again. But she's still young, she still has plenty of time, and I think she's got the drive to succeed that'll stand her in good stead and see her through this rotten run.

[Mozz71]

I'm glad this thread has moved away from the chest beating and back onto Miss Radicanu.

Only time will tell. Emma is in a false position in the rankings atm, as all the ranking points she is winning are brand new. When she has to defend those points, from Wimbledon onwards, we'll get a better idea of how big a flash in the pan her US Open win was.

[jim360]

Just for posterity, here's a selection of ten players who I would not be surprised to see hitting the headlines in the next, shall we say, five years or so.

UK: Hannah Klugman (13)
Germany: Julia Stusek (14)
Czech Republic: Linda Fruhvirtova (16), Linda Noskova (17), Brenda Fruhvirtova (14), Laura Samsonova (13)
Croatia: Petra Marcinko (16)
Russia: Mirra Andreeva (14)
USA: Clervie Ngounoue (15)
Andorra: Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva (16)

[jno]

I suppose the question isn't "is she good enough?" (she has proved herself so) but "are her fitness problems fixable and temporary?", to which nobody knows the answer. I hope the answer to both is "yes".

[New Judge]

//I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that NJ didn't see Raducanu's US Open triumph coming, nor for that matter Leylah Fernandez's own remarkable run on the other side of the draw, nor Swiatek's victory in the 2020 French Open, nor Krejcikova's the following year, etc etc.//

You're quite correct, Jim. I didn't see any of those coming. What I'm talking about here is a player becoming "great". That is, consistently in the top half dozen and winning a decent number of Grand Slams (four or five minimum). I simply don't see Ms Raducanu doing that.

[jim360]

Even one Slam is pretty decent since so few win any at all. And Emma's already made it into the history books, she could retire tomorrow and be able to claim a phenomenally successful career.

Still, if your standard for making it big is four or five slams -- or, I suppose in the case of Murray, three Slams plus a whole career of high-level achievements -- then that's probably difficult for Emma to meet. But not impossible! I think she's got at least another in her, we just need to be patient as she finally gets the experience she skipped by her meteoric rise last year.

[New Judge]

I do hope you're right and I'm wrong, Jim. We'll have to wait and see! :-)

[albaqwerty]

Torax3 ''Then there is SB, jno Canary, all the Scots.......a right motley anti British crew.''

I'll thank you to not speak for me by lumping me in with ''all the Scots''
I am Scottish and am not an SNP supporter and am most definitely not ant-British.

Anyway, I hope she does regain her US form.

[New Judge]

It seems Richard Krajicek has greater confidence than me:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/tennis?form=ANTPSTENS


“I think she is going to be a consistent top five player, a consistent Grand Slam semi-finalist, maybe win a few more,” Dutch tennis great Krajicek told Tennis365 in an exclusive interview.

[jim360]

Him and so many others. But, of course, your own prediction could be correct.

All I can say is that I dearly hope that (a) fans and critics alike show patience, which to be frank she's earned from her wonderful achievements already, and (b) that she nevertheless gets a few decent results in this year. It's going to be rocky, but if she can for example maintain a Top 50 ranking that would still be a great platform for the future.