Did Emma Raducanu's run to the Queen's Club final break her? Jonathan Overend examines what went wrong for the British No 1 on the eve of Wimbledon.
Raducanu , leaving the tournament without its highest-profile British player.
Raducanu announced the decision on Instagram on Sunday evening. She had been set to open play on No 1 Court on Monday against Antonia Ruzic.
The 23-year-old had been dealing with the injury since a run to the final at Queen's Club this month, but said earlier on Sunday at a news conference that she still hoped to play at the All England Club.
"It can't be overstated how difficult it is for these British players to pull out of Wimbledon the day before it starts and I think so much of the talk around Raducanu is about the frequency of the injuries and how fragile she appears to be," said Your Site' lead tennis commentator, Jonathan Overend.
"Let's forget about that for a moment and think of a human being who was about to play in a tournament that she's had some really good results in the past - off the back of reaching the final at Queen's with her hopes presumably pretty high for a decent run here as a seeded player.
"To have to pull out the night before it starts, I just hope the levels of cynicism are just tempered a little bit.
"There's no way she would have wanted this situation, which is why she left it as long as she did because she wanted to give herself every chance of playing.
"It's devastating for her, disappointing for the tournament, but I hope everybody wishes her a speedy recovery because she's been so unlucky with injuries."
Raducanu has not won a tour-level tournament before or after her surprising run to the US Open title as a qualifier at the age of 18. But she impressed at Queen's Club with some of her best tennis since that triumph, .
She said on Sunday that she first felt her injury during the clay-court season before it was aggravated at the grass-court warm-up event.
"Talking to people who have experience of stress fractures the general feeling is that this doesn't happen suddenly, so it's something that she's known about and has been managing, or it's something that has been affecting her, but she hasn't known about it. It hasn't just happened overnight," said Overend.
"The tennis tour is so arduous and so rigorous, there's no time to breathe, but it's no great surprise she should play through that week at Queen's, then have a practice week where suddenly pain has emerged.
"This disruption has clearly affected her practice this week here at Wimbledon even though she's tried to keep her spirits up. She's been photographed smiling, she's been curtailing some sessions and she's been spotted leaving the courts with protection around the shin.
"This is obviously something that they've been managing this week at the very least and quite possibly for the weeks before it as well. It makes her run to the Queen's final all the more remarkable and that should be celebrated.
"She's tried and tried and tried to make the start line here and it just hasn't happened."
Raducanu is wiser and crucially back with old coach Andrew Richardson - the coach she split ‌with shortly after her US Open triumph.
She showed signs of rediscovering her spark and returning to the free-flowing tennis she was known for. That was evident at Queen's with her run securing a seeding of 30 at Wimbledon before her withdrawal.
"That is an incredible achievement when you consider the quantity of players who are out there and the depth of the talent," Overend explained. "To get to that ranking, she must be doing something right.
"There is a presumption that she should be higher and that presumption is around the fact that she won the US Open in 2021, therefore she should be a much better player than 30 in the world. I would disagree!
"If you asked me what is Raducanu's base level, I would say it's somewhere between 20 and 30. That to me is a really good level to be at.
"To the general public, seeded 27 or 28 is nowhere, but to those of us in the game you know how hard you have to work to get to that sort of level, so is she doing that badly? No! She's actually doing pretty well to maintain that ranking, but the key point, does she need a long period injury free of stability in her career? Absolutely! And just when we thought we were going to get it this summer, she's hit by another setback."
Overend added that the reunion with coach Richardson has already proved to be a success.
"There were signs of good improvement to her game [at Queen's] and if she can have some stability then I hope she sees the benefit of having a long-term coach that ultimately helped her to her biggest career achievement."
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