'I Can Become One Of Best Athletes In Tennis': Raducanu Beaming With Confidence
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Emma Raducanu will start the 2025 season with a new person in her team, and she seems to be more determined than ever to start the season.
After winning the 2021 US Open, the British player's career has been a proper rollercoaster, but the 22-year-old player finally wants the ride to end and settle at the top of the WTA Rankings.
Despite her limited playing time in 2024, at times, she showed that she deserves a spot in the Top 10, but tennis is not about deserving but delivering, and that's something Raducanu has to do on the tennis court to earn enough points that would give her the Top 10 position, which she once reached already in 2022.
To help her with that, Raducanu hired a new fitness trainer, Yutaka Nakamura, who previously worked with the likes of Naomi Osaka and Maria Sharapova.
It was first reported at the start of November, and less than two weeks later, the British player confirmed that she wanted Nakamura to join her team.
Now, Nakamura is already part of Raducanu's, and she is very happy with the appointment, hoping that it will help her to become an even better player, as she disclosed in an interview during her pre-season, according to The Telegraph.
"I just want to get out in the heat a bit earlier. Yutaka is going to be with me a lot next year. We're quite similar in the sense that we're very focused with our work: we're not, like, talking or chit-chatting about other things."
"It's nice to have someone who's on the same sort of wavelength as you. I think he is going to help me just really explore how far I can go, like, athletically. It's a big strength of mine that I have nowhere near fulfilled."
Raducanu hopes that with Nakamura in her team, and also her coach Nick Cavaday, she can become one of the best athletes in tennis.
"I think I can become one of the best athletes out there in tennis. And the way I'm working with him and Nick [Cavaday, her coach], it's a lot more integrated."
At the moment, she feels great on the practice court, especially after being able to play in the Billie Jean King Cup and delivering results for Great Britain.
"On the training court I feel amazing, I'm throwing myself around, but it's different playing matches. I played a few at Fed Cup [now the Billie Jean King Cup], and I felt like I recovered well. I wasn't tiring in the matches."
"It would just be good to see as the level increases, and if I have to play more [matches] back-to-back, how I'm going to react."
Raducanu also explained how the start of the season will look like for her. Instead of traveling directly to Auckland, New Zealand, where she will participate in the ASB Classic, she will travel to Brisbane, where she will practice with her friend and current World No. 167, Priscilla Hon.
"We're going to hit, hang out there, get in the heat. I didn't want to go straight to Auckland because if you get to a tournament too early, you kind of get a bit stale before the match. So I wanted to go there when it's tournament time."
