Emma Raducanu Reveals She Was Sick In Her First-Round Win At Roland Garros

Monday, 26 May 2025 at 18:26

byErik Virostko

Emma Raducanu just can't avoid physical struggles, and this time, she struggled with an illness in her first-round match at the 2025 Roland Garros.

Raducanu had to battle for every ball in her first match at this year's French Open. The Brit took on Xinyu Wang, who is ranked just two spots below the 2021 US Open champion, and there wasn't much separating the two on the court either.

Raducanu won the first set of the match, but she then lost the second set, and had to be flawless in the third. Ultimately, the 22-year-old won the match 7-5, 4-6, 6-3. Prior to the tournament, she admitted to health struggles, but those were related to the injury that she picked up during the Strasbourg Open.

However, after her first win in Paris, Raducanu revealed that she struggled not only with the injury, but also with an illness, as she woke up feeling sick before taking to court against Wang.

"I think I’m actually really proud of today’s match, more so than a lot of the matches that I played recently or in general, because I woke up and I felt really sick, to be honest."

"I felt bad from the morning. I was just trying and fighting through that. It was really difficult. You know, in the first set, I just felt it straight away and it didn’t really go away throughout the whole match."

"To have kind of come through that and overcome how I was feeling, I’m really happy with and I didn’t let it kind of, you know…it would have been easy to kind of let it drag me down. I don’t know why I’ve struggled today."

"The last few days, I’ve just not really been feeling great. I guess I’m managing a few things. I’m glad I can have some rest and hopefully rest up before playing Wednesday."

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Raducanu will need to be close to her best if she wants to succeed in the next round. Her opponent will be four-time Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek, who defeated Rebecca Sramkova in the first round.

Swiatek and Raducanu met four times before, with the Polish player winning in all of their meetings. Two of Swiatek's wins came on clay, but even though Raducanu has never managed to beat the five-time Grand Slam champion, she is motivated ahead of their meeting.

"I feel like Iga’s always played really well when we have played. I’m looking forward to kind of going out and playing her again. I think in the last month, I have made good strides with my game and my mentality, as well, big time"

"I think this time, yeah, it’s great. I get another crack at the best in the world and I’m looking forward to playing on a big court probably as well."