After facing a fourth-round exit at the 2025 Italian Open, Emma Raducanu accepted a wildcard entry for the WTA 500 event in Strasbourg. It turned out to be an unexpected move since the WTA 1000 event in Rome was considered Raducanu’s final tournament before the 2025 French Open.
Nonetheless, the Brit seems fully determined to make an impact in Strasbourg as she indulged in an intense training session ahead of the event.
Emma Raducanu Gears Up with Intense Practice Session Before Strasbourg
in the first round but fell to the 24th seed, Marta Kostyuk, in the second. The 22-year-old then made significant progress at the 2025 Italian Open, defeating Maya Joint, Jil Teichmann, and Veronika Kudermetova before losing to finalist Coco Gauff 1-6, 2-6 in the fourth round.
Raducanu had already expressed her eagerness to continue playing without a break ahead of the second Grand Slam of the year.
“I would love to just keep improving, keep playing. I think that’s a positive for me,” Raducanu shared with Sky Sports after her Italian Open exit. “I don’t want to go and hide in a hole somewhere; I want to get back out there, so that’s good,” she added.
The Brit carried that relentless determination to the court, powering through an intense practice session ahead of her participation at the Internationaux de Strasbourg. She later shared the clip of the session on her Instagram story.
“Emma Raducanu finds her marks on the center court,” the caption read (translated from French to English).
Emma Raducanu Shares Takeaways from Rome as She Prepares for French Open
After her Italian Open exit, Raducanu highlighted the importance of staying committed to her forehands and maintaining a consistent swing, which helped her in the tournament’s first three rounds.
“I think I’ve taken the lessons that I need to; like, for me to have success, I need to keep swinging, committing to my forehands. The first three rounds, I had a lot of success doing that,” she said.
Raducanu valued playing top opponents for exposure, stressing the need to learn from them. She also emphasized the need to replicate challenging shots in practice to improve her game.
“I think I also need to just work on, like, for me to see the ball today that I was receiving was really valuable. I haven’t really played these top opponents very often because I haven’t been in the tournaments for long enough. For me to be kind of playing them now is good exposure. I can take lessons, in practice try to replicate certain balls that are really heavy, really shaped, unpredictable,” she added.
Raducanu is currently ranked No. 49 in the WTA rankings and holds an 11-9 win-loss record in 2025. Joining her in Strasbourg are notable stars including Jessica Pegula, Paula Badosa, and Emma Navarro. She starts her campaign against Daria Kasatkina on Sunday, May 18.
