The 21-year-old holds an impressive 16-10 record this season, having played 10 tournaments and also two matches in the Billie Jean King qualifying round.
The former world No 10 started 2024 ranked 301st in the world as she had not played since April 2023 due to injury. Raducanu underwent surgery on both her wrists and her ankle in May last year.
Emma Raducanu’s rankings boost paying dividends with US Open announcement
Tennis at Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Who’s in and who’s out – ft. Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Emma Raducanu
Emma Raducanu’s controversial decisions paying off after US Open rankings boost
Raducanu has opted to skip the upcoming Paris Olympics to focus on the North American hard-court swing building up to the US Open. She will next play at the WTA 500 event in Washington, which will begin on July 29.
In an interview with Tennis Magazin, Raducanu addressed whether her definition of success had changed after her injury-enforced absence from the tour.
“Yes, it has. Success in the long run is staying healthy. It’s about doing everything I can to avoid training hard, but training smart, to stay injury free,” Raducanu explained.
“I’ve experienced how time flies when you can’t train or play for a long time. It’s not really fun. Success is doing everything I can to make sure I’m in that position to train and stay healthy.
“I have reassessed my goals for this year a few times. I think my goals will change throughout the year. My priority is to develop my game, which means that I probably won’t play too many tournaments this year.
“I don’t want to make up for lost time from last year by only playing tournaments. It’s about building a concrete and important foundation to be in good playing and physical shape over the next few years.”
Asked what she learned about herself when she could not play tennis, Raducanu said: “I’ve learned a lot about myself. To feel at my best in tennis or anything else, I need to be fresh and hungry.
“That doesn’t necessarily happen for me through training or playing. I need to keep that edge and that spark in my game. After the break, I was eager to get back to playing.
“It can be exhausting playing on the tour week after week and taking on all the responsibilities that come with being a tennis professional.
“For me, the best solution is to do things my way. Before I came on tour, that was the best way for me. It worked well.”
WTA Rankings: Iga Swiatek No 1, Danielle Collins and Barbora Krejcikova top 10, Lulu Sun and Emma Raducanu top 100
Our 2024 Wimbledon Awards – starring Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu
