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US Open champion or not, Emma Raducanu will try and employ her New York philosophy as she tackles the Australian Open this week.
‘I feel like I’m just happy to be here and have a swing,’ she said as she considered playing the first round as the 17th seed and recent Grand Slam winner, rather than being a humble wildcard or qualifier.
Of course, it will be different this time and she will definitely not be on some court in the outer realms of Melbourne Park when she faces American Sloane Stephens on Tuesday.
Emma Raducanu will be one of the main attractions at the Australian Open this month
Raducanu will be one of the tournament’s main attractions for her first significant assignment in what may well be a year of harsh learnings, for the first part at least.
In reaching for the pressure valve release the teenager from Kent can point to two things. The first is that her preparations for the new season were badly disrupted by the Covid diagnosis she had in Abu Dhabi prior to Christmas.
The second is that she can look back on what she was doing this time last year, which was very different to what her peer
