Emma Raducanu is out of the first 1000-level tournament of the WTA Asian swing with a ligament injury, having deliberately ‘stacked’ her schedule for this part of the season.
On Monday September 23, Raducanu confirmed her absence from the China Open in Beijing with a statement on X.
“Hello, last week in Seoul I sprained some ligaments in my foot which unfortunately need some more time to heal,” said Raducanu. “It means I can’t play in Beijing but I hope to be back competing as soon as I can.”
Hello, last week in Seoul i sprained some ligaments in my foot which unfortunately need some more time to heal😔. It means i can’t play in Beijing but I hope to be back competing as soon as i can 🤞❤️🩹
— Emma Raducanu (@EmmaRaducanu) September 23, 2024
Raducanu, 21, retired from her Korean Open quarter-final against top seed Daria Kasatkina having lost the first set 6-1. Her movement was visibly impeded throughout a set in which she won just four points on serve, and she pointed to the area around her Achilles while being assessed between games.
The injury is a particular blow for the Brit, after she deliberately biased her tennis scheduling for the year towards the current hard-court swing in Asia, which takes in tournaments in Seoul, Beijing, Wuhan and Ningbo in China, and then Tokyo. “I thrive in Asia,” she told the WTA website, emphasizing that she had skipped grass-court tournaments, as well as warm-ups for the U.S. Open (at which she arrived under-cooked and lost in the first round) in order to be fit for this part of the year.
Raducanu has struggled periodically with injury since winning the U.S. Open as a qualifier in 2021. She underwent double wrist and ankle surgery in summer 2023, and pulled out of a mixed doubles match with Andy Murray at Wimbledon in order to protect her fitness for the singles event there.
(Jung Yeon-Je / AFP via Getty Images)
