Emma Raducanu admits there is plenty of room for improvement in her game after crashing out of the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday.
The former US Open champion suffered a comprehensive 6-3, 6-2, loss to Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima, who is ranked three places higher than her at 52nd in the world. Raducanu was broken five times and only managed to win five out of 15 points behind her first serve. She has now lost five out of her last six matches played since the Australian Open.
Besides her struggles on the court, Raducanu has also endured an unpleasant encounter with a man who was “exhibiting fixated behavior” and was watching her play at the Dubai Tennis championships. The individual approached her twice prior to the match and was also seen following her at other tournaments. He has now been banned from all WTA events and was arrested by police.
Speaking about her latest performance, the 22-year-old stated that the Dubai incident didn’t have any impact on how she played.
“I didn’t have what happened in Dubai in my head at all. If anything, [it was] a bit of a lack of preparation on the tennis court, playing someone who played pretty good in these extremely awkward conditions,” Raducanu told reporters.
“I think it depends what sort of frame of mind you are in. I think all the players will say, if they are feeling good, it’s great. If they are not, it can be more difficult and challenging.
“You have to just overcome whatever hurdles that come your way and just keep going forward.”
Given her recent results on the Tour, the Brit admits there are various areas of her game that she can improve on. So far in 2025, the only time she won back-to-back matches was at the Australian Open where she reached the third round before losing to Iga Swiatek.
“I’ll need to improve starting the point. That’s a big part of tennis. I can do that a lot better,” she explained.
“I could improve being more aggressive and having a better quality of shot going forward into the court.
“I could improve every area of my game after today’s performance.”
Raducanu hopes to get back on track with the help of new coach Vladimir Platenik who she is working with for a trial period. Platenik is a former top 10 junior player who has extensive experience in working with WTA players. In the past he has collaborated with Dominika Cibulkova, Nadia Petrova, Yanina Wickmayer, Ksenia Pervak, Ajla Tomljanovic, Veronika Kudermetova and Daria Kasatkina.
“We haven’t necessarily done that much yet, because he arrived very, very recently. So it was the day before the match where we don’t necessarily want to change anything,” Raducanu said of the new partnership.
“So we haven’t actually started, I’d say, like, proper work. From how I have met him, he’s very serious, he’s very professional, gets on with it. So yeah, we’ll see how it goes.”
