Emma Raducanu's long-awaited return to tennis will take place at the Inaugural Macau Tennis Masters Exhibition tournament in her mother's home country in China.
The former British No. 1 will feature in a star-studded lineup featuring Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic, and ATP stars Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, and China's lone ATP titlist Yibing Wu. One more ATP player has not yet been confirmed. The two-day event will take place in the first week of December at the Macau East Asian Games Dome.
The event will be co-hosted by IMG (who handle Raducanu's business contracts) and MGM. The schedule as confirmed by the tournament will feature two men's singles semifinals and a mixed doubles match on the opening day. There will be a women's singles match on the second day, a third-place play-off men's match, and a men's final.
Raducanu's comeback will be in Macau - an autonomous city located in China's south coast. The women's singles match will in all likelihood pit Raducanu up against Belinda Bencic. It will be the Briton's first match since mid-April where she suffered an absolute drubbing at the hands of Jelena Ostapenko in Stuttgart.
Since then, the 20-year-old has undergone multiple surgeries on her wrists and ankle. She resumed formal training in July and has gradually stepped up her fitness program in a bid to get herself fit in the autumn. Unfortunately, Raducanu miscalculated her fitness levels and chose to end her 2023 season.
The news of her omission from Great Britain's Billie Jean King Cup team for the play-off match against Sweden in London was expected. But it may come at a cost, as Raducanu hasn't met the prerequisites of playing at the Paris Olympics in 2024. One of the requirements is that players need to feature for BJKC nomination at least on two occasions in one Olympic cycle.
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