Emma Raducanu will play in Seoul this week, taking part in the 2024 Korea Open, and she will be the player to look out for as she could go all the way to win the trophy.
Raducanu has played super solid tennis this year. Whenever she played, she managed to win a couple of matches, but things never fully clicked for the former US Open champion.
Some expected it to happen at Wimbledon because she was looking so strong, but it didn't, as she was beaten by Lulu Sun in a surprising result. The bottom line still stands: she's been very good most of the time when she played.
The Korea Open is a WTA 500 event, which is a big tournament with lots of points to be won. If Raducanu has a deep run in Seoul, it could be a huge boost for her before the final weeks of the season.
Not only does she need the points, being ranked only 70th in the world ahead of the tournament, but winning a trophy would be a huge confidence booster as well. Some things make it more likely than usual.
The somewhat depleted draw opened up quite a bit for the British player. Fans were supposed to get Jessica Pegula, Iga Swiatek, and Elena Rybakina playing at the event, but they all withdrew.
With that, Raducanu ended up being one of the top names in the draw alongside Daria Kasatkina and Beatriz Haddad Maia. Her chances are certainly significantly higher with those players being out of the draw.
Winning the event would earn her 500 points, which would push her into the Top 40. That's a much more comfortable position to be in if you're Raducanu because besides making the draws much easier, it also creates way less pressure.
Her North American hard-court series in 2024 was marred by scheduling mistakes, which were in part due to her refusal to play qualifiers. Her ranking wasn't good enough to enter the Cincinnati Open, and she didn't want to play the qualifiers.
While she later admitted that she was willing to play the qualifiers, sometimes actions can speak louder than words, at least according to some analysts.
If she wants to improve her ranking and challenge for the seeding spots at the Australian Open, doing well in Korea will be crucial for Raducanu. Her road to the trophy starts off with a complicated matchup.
She will be facing Peyton Stearns, who is a very solid player and won't be easy to beat. It's a matchup she can even lose, but if she manages to win, she'll be set for a decent run.
Daria Kasatkina, as the top seed, is by far the toughest opponent she can face in those opening few rounds, possibly clashing with the Russian in the quarter-finals.
Outside of her, the biggest opposition are players like Liudmila Samsonova, Marta Kostyuk, and Diana Shnaider, who are all seeds and very good hard-court players.
Still, a player of Raducanu's caliber won't fear any of those players, nor should she, so overall, this week is a pretty good chance for her to play well, with an ideal scenario pushing her to the World No. 39 position, while a run to the semi-finals would see her move up to the very close proximity of the Top 50.
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