Emma Raducanu vowed to learn from her mistakes following the uproar over her recent schedule and she will be following through on that promise as she will feature in her first qualifying event since 2021.
The 21-year-old has signed up for several tournaments on the Asian swing as she competed in this week’s Korea Open – reaching the quarter-final before returning midway during her match against Daria Kasatkina – while she will next be in action at the WTA 1000 China Open.
Raducanu has a direct entry into the Beijing event as it is a 96-player main draw event, but her current ranking of 70 is not good enough for an entry into the Wuhan Open as only 56 players will feature.
But the British youngster has entered her name into the qualifying draw, something she has been reluctant to do since winning the US Open three years ago.
But the path to the main draw in Wuhan will not be easy as a host of big-name players, including fellow Grand Slam winners Sofia Kenin, Sloane Stephens, Bianca Andreescu, and Naomi Osaka, have entered the qualifying event.
Raducanu, though, has good memories of her last top-level qualifying event as back in 2021 she won 10 matches in a row at the US Open – three in qualifying and seven in the main draw – to become the first qualifying to win a Grand Slam.
She surged up the rankings on the back of her fairytale run and she no longer needed to play qualifiers, but following her drop in form and injuries last year, she slumped down the rankings again.
Raducanu was initially able to use her protected ranking to get into draws while tournament organisers also offered wildcards, but the latter dried up and she was set to play qualifiers at Roland Garros before opting to skip the clay-court Grand Slam.
During the North American hard-court swing it became an issue again as she wasn’t handed wildcards for the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open, but opted not to play qualifiers.
Instead, she started the final Grand Slam of the year with just one warm-up tournament under her belt and was beaten in straight sets by Sofia Kenin in the first round of the US Open.
After the match she admitted: “I would have preferred to probably play, a little bit more before coming into the US Open. I think I can learn from it. And you know my manage my schedule slightly differently.”
Nearly two months later she is managing her calendar differently as she will also feature at the Ningbo Open and Hong Kong Open as she has been handed wildcards.
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