The British player will skip the Olympic tournament to avoid the quick grass-clay-hard-courts switch and avoid physical problems: a right choice. Why do fans only criticize her and not those who made the same choice?
While waiting to understand her psycho-physical state with more athletically and emotionally challenging matches, Emma Raducanu has once again exposed herself to the spotlight, for several reasons. The British tennis player – who reached an excellent semi-final in Nottingham, losing to countrywoman Katie Boulter at the end of a hard-fought match – will now be called upon to confirm the good things she saw in the English tournament.
At the press conference after the semi-final in Nottingham, Emma said she felt very good physically.
“I feel a little tired but I’m in the last stages of a tournament. There’s no point in being super fresh if you go out in the first round every week. I’ve come a long way. I feel really good physically. That lockdown just allowed me to do more work, more fitness. I’m starting to trust my body a lot more, I wouldn’t say I’m the finished product, but I’m feeling really good that I could play tomorrow. I’m just shaking off a bit of a cold and a bit of a cold but physically I’m just feeling good, I’m feeling strong. Even at the start of this. year, getting back into match fitness and being able to continue day after day, it’s a good position to be in,” she told.
Raducanu also found time to praise Boulter, who won the title on the same day as her boyfriend Alex De Minaur triumphed in the Netherlands, through an Inatagram post.
What caught the attention of fans (and haters) was the young British girl’s decision to skip the Paris Olympics. A choice that divided the tennis fandom, between those who sided with Emma’s choice and those who harshly criticized her.
“If I’m fit, if I’m giving 100%, I know great things are coming, but I don’t think there’s any need to stress my body any more or take any risks, especially with my history. For me that’s been pretty clear since from the beginning. I do things in my own way and in my own time, when I want, not in a diva way, but by prioritizing my body and my health,” she explained.
I believe that Emma’s choice to skip the Paris Olympics is correct (and below I will explain why) and I really struggle to understand the insistence of many fans (or rather, haters) in gratuitously criticizing this girl who, with difficulty, is trying to get back to the top. Then, it is right that Emma does with her free time what she wants. Let’s not forget that she is just a girl and she has every right to have fun, indulge in fashion and whatever she wants.
Some of the worst comments on Twitter were: “More like she won’t be earning any money at the Olympics. People need to get their head around that Raducanu does everything for a check. All her decisions involve a check being written out to her, “ or: “Must be a Dior event going on during that time,” and also: “Big talk from someone ranked 209.”
Idiotic comments, in my opinion. With all the physical problems she has had, Raducanu will have to get good results again to climb the WTA ranking. To do this, she will have to concentrate her tennis on the surfaces that are most congenial to her: hard and grass-courts. After Wimbledon, a quick and direct switch to grass-clay-courts would perhaps have been too much, also considering the long North American hard-court season. I haven’t seen all this criticism towards Ons Jabeur, who decided to skip the Paris Olympics precisely to avoid the triple (and very fast) grass-clay-hard-courts switch. Emma’s choice was wise, enough with these sterile and useless criticisms.
And about tennis and Olympic Games, Simon Briggs of the Telegraph said tennis is just a tourist sport, for the Olympics.
“Stepping outside the narrow parameters of this debate, we can identify two different types of Olympic sports. The hardest disciplines are those like gymnastics. Track and field, nowadays, is almost in the same position. These sports are the at the heart of the Games. Poised on the edge of a 10m board, you know that one wrong dive will jeopardize your chances for another four years. It is this mind-boggling, blood-shaking pressure that gives the Olympic competition its secret sauce .
The second category includes tourist sports. Tennis players, soccer players and golfers often seem to enjoy the Games more because they don’t have to deal with such pressing expectations,” said the journalist.
A sensible point, but one that I partially disagree with. the Olympics are the Olympics, and I believe that for a tennis player they are just as important as for other athletes. But it is clear that, in such a busy schedule, it is really difficult to be able to participate when in the space of a month and a half tennis players will have to move from grass to clay to hard-courts.