Emma Raducanu, who made her Australian Open debut in 2022, is returning to Melbourne Park with hopes of getting on track despite battling a foot injury during her offseason, which naturally derailed her training. The British star has recently reflected on her thoughts, explaining that she aims to build her momentum rather than give in to the pressure to perform well.
Emma Raducanu Takes Pressure Off Herself After Foot Injury Ahead of Australian Open Debut
Raducanu will join the other WTA elites in Melbourne Park after clinching her season’s first win at the Hobart International, the WTA 250, outdoor tournament in which she had entered as the top seed. She ended her journey with a quarterfinal loss to Taylah Preston, the World No. 204 from Australia.
Before Hobart, she debuted at the 2026 United Cup, where she had to skip her first match against Japan’s star Naomi Osaka due to foot issues. Then she lost to Greece’s Maria Sakkari, with Great Britain knocked out of the tournament with a final scoreline of 1-2. Raducanu ended her last season after a round-of-32 loss at the Ningbo Open due to illness in mid-October and returned in January, also battling a foot injury in between.
Considering her current state, Raducanu mentioned her injury and facing difficulty in the later stages of her 2025 season, “I think I did a great job of turning my season around after Indian Wells. I think I started picking up some really good momentum. For me the end of 2025 was difficult because I was hampered by a foot injury. So that’s just taken some time to recover and I didn’t get to really have a preseason.”
She clearly expressed that she will be avoiding putting any pressure on herself, as she is looking to restore her court momentum after facing challenges that have dampened her rhythm, adding, “So I started training very very late on, tennis wise. So because of that, I feel like I need to kind of take the pressure off myself and not put too much pressure on and expect to be playing amazing tennis because, you know, I’m like week four of return to play.”
READ MORE: Emma Raducanu Reveals Why She Needs To Expect Not To ‘Play Amazing Tennis’
Furthermore, Raducanu continued, highlighting that she is trusting her step-by-step plans of reaching her best, “So, it’s not of practice. It’s not much at all. So I just want to keep putting in the right steps that I know are going to take me to where I want to go in the future. Whether that comes this week, whether it comes tomorrow, whether it comes in a couple weeks, I know it will inevitably.”
For her first clash at the Australian Open, Raducanu is set to face Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew, and as per the PFSN’s exclusive interactive simulator, the British star is 76% likely to take the win.
