Emma Raducanu practiced at Melbourne Park on Monday but she appeared to be extra-cautious and not moving too much.
I was lucky to be the only person watching and filming Emma #Raducanu’s first practice session since rolling her ankle.
Here’s a little bit of the beginning. If you want me to post clips from the whole session later on, follow me or retweet. 🎾👍 #AO2023 #AustralianOpen #WTA pic.twitter.com/atavgbc0k8 — Todd Scoullar (@ToddScoullar) January 9, 2023
Backhands from the baseline.
Not bringing the hip through at all to avoid landing on the ankle. pic.twitter.com/AAHIAv7ZIl — Todd Scoullar (@ToddScoullar) January 9, 2023
On Thursday, Raducanu rolled her ankle at the ASB Classic in Auckland. Although Raducanu left the court in tours and visibly dejected, she decided to go to Melbourne and give herself a chance to compete at the Australian Open.
At the start of this week, Raducanu practiced very lightly. According to Todd Scoullar who was on the scene, the strapping on Raducanu’s ankle was “quite insignificant.” Also, Scoullar noted that even though Raducanu looked in obvious discomfort, she refused to finish her practice session early.
The positives for Emma:
– She’s on court
– She has a full week to recover
– At one stage, the team wanted to stop, but she asked to finish the basket of balls
– The strapping was quite insignificant.
– While in obvious discomfort, at no stage did she need to stop.— Todd Scoullar (@ToddScoullar) January 9, 2023
Raducanu has a week to recover
After Raducanu went down with an ankle injury, her team was hoping for it to just be a minor sprain. Since Raducanu is in Melbourne and has already practiced lightly, it is definitely a promising sign that her recovery is trending in the right direction.
But even if Raducanu manages to play at the Australian Open, it would be hard to imagine her being at her best since she definitely won’t have a week of hard practice sessions in Melbourne. In the offseason, Raducanu spent numerous hours in the gym, working on getting stronger.
After all of the offseason effort, it was absolutely devastating for Raducanu to suffer an injury in her first tournament of the year. However, Raducanu is trying to keep a positive spirit and take “a day at a time.”
“It [the injury] was really unfortunate because I was feeling great about my season, I was feeling really good with the preparation I did physically. And I just had an accident on the court, I don’t know what I could’ve done to really prevent that.
I’m just taking it a day at a time and just trying every single day as best as possible to see and make progress. We’ll see hopefully by Monday or whenever the tournament starts, I’ll be OK and ready. We’re just taking it a day at a time and not trying to expect too much at this point,” Raducanu said.
