Emma Raducanu has often been accused of not really liking tennis, but that's far from the truth, as she actually finds a lot of joy in competing.
Tennis, like any sport, is very fun but there are conditions to it. If you're losing repeatedly, it gets old pretty quickly and stops being fun. Contrary to that, winning is always fun; nobody grows tired of it. You will never hear anybody in sports say: "I'm so tired of winning."
For Raducanu, winning has been a foreign concept lately. Even before her injury hiatus, the Brit struggled to win a lot of matches. It's certainly a far cry from what we saw at the US Open a few years ago when she bulldozed her opponents en route to the trophy.
The loss and the seeming lack of focus on tennis from the Brit got many to assume that she simply doesn't care as much about tennis. It's far from the truth, though not many seem to believe that. In a talk with the Tennis Channel filmed earlier this year, Raducanu explained how she finds joy in the sport.
I really enjoy playing it, I just love the competition, I love training, I do love putting my training weeks in, it gives me a great satisfaction and feeling but also my motivation a lot of the time, last week was ' I don't want to practice tomorrow, I would rather play a match' and that worked out pretty well.
Those are probably words not many would use for her, but she does seem to work hard. Her struggles were expected, but the injury luck wasn't good either.
When she did play for consecutive weeks, she looked pretty strong, so let's see what happens in 2024. The return schedule is not known yet, though the hope of an early return remains.
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