Emma Raducanu revealed that she is evaluating her upcoming schedule after suffering a setback at this week's Qatar Open.
The British tennis star was knocked out of the first WTA 1000 tournament of the season by Ukraine's Anhelina Kalinina. She lost the first set 6-0 in less than 25 minutes, and despite fighting back in the second and taking the set into a tie-break, she was eventually sent packing after spurning a set point.
Raducanu spoke to Sky Sports after the match, in which she admitted to "struggling with everything" in what was her fourth defeat in seven matches since her comeback. The 21-year-old is seeking to return to the upper echelons of the sport after recovering from three surgeries last year.
So far, it has been a modest start to the year for the former US Open champion under the guidance of her childhood mentor, Nick Cavaday. She is currently ranked outside the world's Top 200 and doesn't qualify for an automatic main draw berth in many tour-level tournaments.
Raducanu is currently relying on wild cards and utilizing her Special Ranking status to enter into major tournaments. But the defeat to Kalinina can be classified as her first setback since her returning to the sport in January.
The assessment of her performance was an indication that she was not happy with some of the things that she had done behind the scenes, and she stated that she was heading home rather than requesting a wild card to play at the Dubai Championships next week.
"I think that I need to kind of schedule my tournaments a bit better as well as just trying to get some more matches under my belt. I think that I’m just going to go home and practice and we’ll see where it goes from there."
While Raducanu needs to test herself against the best just so she climb the rankings again, she appears ready to press the reset button and overhaul her schedule in the coming weeks. It could be an overreaction after a disappointing defeat, but it will be interesting to see what develops from here.
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