By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Monday June 24, 2024
Photograph credit score: Clive Brunskill/Getty
The tennis courtroom could be an emotionally flammable place.
Emma Raducanu says the British grass season has reignited her emotional fireplace for the game.
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Buoyed by her semi-final in Nottingham – her first final 4 look of the season – Raducanu will play Sloane Stephens tomorrow in an Eastbourne opener of former US Open champions.
After lacking Roland Garros, the 21-year-old Brit says she is wanting ahead to getting again on the grass.
“I am actually wanting ahead to it in the intervening time. I simply love the game, I really like tennis,” Raducanu advised the media in Eastbourne. “It has taken me over and I’ve actually rekindled the sunshine within the fireplace inside me.
“I am very grateful to have this sense once more as a result of it is one thing that I’ve missed in a approach over the previous few years and I have never felt superb about my tennis – I used to be simply enthusiastic and keen about it – earlier than a protracted, very long time.”
The 2021 US Open champion joins Angelique Kerber, Naomi Osaka and Caroline Wozniacki as one in all 4 former Grand Slam champions to obtain Wimbledon wildcards into the primary draw.
It will likely be Raducanu’s first look at The Championships since 2022.
In her 2021 Wimbledon debut, a then 338th seed Raducanu upset Marketa Vondrousova and Sorana Cirstea to achieve the spherical of 16, the place she retired to Ajla Tomljanovic.
The return to the grass has helped Raducanu regain her confidence and positivity forward of the championships, she stated.
“Now it is actually reassuring for me as a result of I am a lot much less centered on the end result, as a result of I do know that with the best way I practice, the best way I compete and combat on the sector, 100% good issues will occur. ” Raducanu stated. “I now have full confidence in that and I can say it and imply it on the similar time, as a substitute of simply saying it.”