After her first experience of the clay-court season, expectations will grow much higher as Wimbledon beckons
As Emma Raducanu dusted the dirt off her clay-court shoes and discarded them until next year after her second-round loss to Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Wednesday, a notable cycle came to a close. Having made her professional debut in the week after the French Open at the small grass-court tournament in Nottingham last year, Raducanu has now completed one year at the top level of professional tennis.
It is, first of all, a moment of reflection after a manic 12 months in which her life has transformed, a mood she appeared to be in even before her exit in Paris: “We were saying with my team this morning, it’s pretty much a year anniversary since my comeback to competitive tennis,” she said on Thursday. “I was playing a British tour [a low-level national event] in Connaught. I think I have come a long way since then. I think I do really welcome going around the second time.”