Emma Raducanu is hungry to prove herself at the 2025 Australian Open (Image: Getty)
has admitted her injury layoffs have increased her “hunger” for tennis as she prepares to face fellow teenage prodigy Amanda Anisimova at the .
The British No.2 showed her mental resilience – and her fist-pumping will-to-win – while beating the No.26 seed here despite serving 15 double faults.
She will now meet American Ansimova who took an eight-month break from tennis in 2023 to protect her mental health.
The challenges of top-class sport were also illustrated when Aussie qualifier Destanee Aiava revealed she had decided to take her own life on Easter Sunday in 2022 before she was talked down from a Melbourne bridge.
The 2021 US Open champion, who suffered a back spasm before Christmas, was forced out of action at the same time as her friend Ansimova in 2023 for wrist and ankle surgeries.
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But the Bromley-based star, 22, said the breaks have made her realise she loves her stressful job.
“We kind of coincidentally took time off at the same time, me for my surgeries, but having that time away does make you realise your hunger for the sport,” she said. “Tennis is obviously very challenging. It’s not easy.
“But I think having eight months off, you really miss it. You see all the tournaments go by, especially the Slams, and you just want to be there. You just want to be playing.
“And I think the same in a smaller scale happened in the last few weeks, when I had that back spasm because I was off for three weeks.
“It made me a lot more grateful just to be able to get on the practice court and just be able to get in the gym and now to be able to play a match.
Emma Raducanu is off to a winning start in Melbourne (Image: Getty)
“You play match after match. But for me, I love it, and I think the process right now and how I’m operating, I’m not taking joy from just winning matches or losing. I think it’s a healthy way to look at it.”
Ansimova, 23, won her first WTA event aged 17 and reached the 2019 French Open semi-finals before experiencing burnout. “I think that performing well at a young age definitely comes with its perks and also some challenges,” she said. “Emma’s a friend of mine, so it will be a bit interesting.”
Raducanu’s new service action was certainly interesting against Ekaterina Alexandrova on breezy Court 3.
“I’m not sure what I changed in my serve today,” she said. “I think it had a mind of its own.”
The British No.2 had her serve broken six times and won only one of her first 15 points on her second serve.
But she also fired down nine aces in her match of Russian roulette against Alexandrova – and crucially showed her big-match temperament in both tiebreaks to win 7-6 7-6. She has now won eight consecutive tiebreaks dating back to last April
Raducanu, who punched the air in delight after winning her first match since November, said:
“When it gets to those clutch moments, I mean I relish playing in that. I’m very competitive. I have always been in every aspect of my life, whether that was in education, in school, off the court, small things and, of course, big moments and big points. I’m able to step up. And that’s a great quality.”