Emma Raducanu is seeded 28th in the Australian Open.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n
Emma Raducanu<\/a> has been left less than impressed by the Australian Open’s scheduling after being forced to scramble to get ready for the tournament.<\/p>\n The British No. 1 only arrived in Melbourne on Friday after reaching the quarterfinals of the Hobart International but will start her campaign here on Sunday against little-known Thai Mananchaya Sawangkaew<\/a>.<\/p>\n And not only has she been scheduled on the opening day, she has also been given the second night session slot on Margaret Court Arena after a men’s match beginning at 7 p.m. local time, meaning the possibility of a very late start.<\/p>\n Raducanu was planning to have her first practice at 9 p.m. on Saturday, and she said: “It’s very difficult. You would love to have more time in the environment, more time practising, but I guess I was pretty much handed the schedule to try and turn it around and make the most out of what is in front of me.<\/p>\n “I think it’s easy to get down and complain about it, but it’s not going to help. So I’m just trying to focus and turn it around for tomorrow.<\/p>\n “It’s very difficult to be scheduling women’s matches after a potential five-set match. To me, it doesn’t really make as much sense.<\/p>\n “Today I’m going to practise and see what it’s like. I don’t think I have been in that situation. Only once before maybe when I played the semis of the US Open.<\/p>\n “I played second night match but, other than that, I haven’t played that late. So, for me, it’s a new experience, something that I need to learn to do.”<\/p>\n – Australian Open 2026: Which Brits are playing in the first Grand Slam of the year? It would be a tough situation even if Raducanu came into the season in prime shape, but the 23-year-old has once again battled physical issues during pre-season, with a foot injury severely limiting her time on court.<\/p>\n She looked short of match sharpness in a clash with Maria Sakkari<\/a> at the United Cup last week, while she beat Camila Osorio<\/a> in the opening round in Hobart but then lost to low-ranked Australian Taylah Preston<\/a>.<\/p>\n Raducanu said of the foot issue: “It’s definitely a lot better. I’ve been having to manage it for the last few months but I’m really happy with the progress that I’ve made this year.<\/p>\n “I came out to Australia not knowing how it would go and now I’m in a much better place and just improving day by day.<\/p>\n “I could easily get frustrated about not having the pre-season I wanted. I think it would only frustrate me. After last year being my first real year on tour, I really learned that the season is so long. I just want to try and work my way into this year.<\/p>\n “Obviously I want this week to go well but I know that I’m working on the right things and it will slot into place at some point.<\/p>\n “I started training very, very late on tennis-wise. So, because of that, I feel like I need to kind of take the pressure off myself and not put too much pressure on and expect to be playing amazing tennis.”<\/p>\n On paper, Sawangkaew should not offer too much of a threat being ranked down at 195 and making her grand slam debut, but the 23-year-old already has a lower-level title to her name this season.<\/p>\n “I think it’s a tricky one because, playing a lot of matches, even if it’s at ITF level, and getting a lot of wins, it does so much,” Raducanu said.<\/p>\n “I think it’s a very dangerous opponent, a very dangerous situation to be in. You don’t know that much about them, so there is that element of surprise, too.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu is seeded 28th in the Australian Open.\u00a0Getty Emma Raducanu has been left less than impressed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-419253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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