Emma Raducanu has questioned the decision by Australian Open organisers to schedule her first-round match late at night after a men’s singles contest which could last up to five sets.
The British No1 has endured a challenging build-up to the first grand-slam tournament of the year. She played only one match at the season-opening United Cup because of a foot injury, before her participation in this week’s WTA Hobart International was disrupted by poor weather. She ended up losing in the quarter-finals on Thursday to Taylah Preston, an Australian wild card ranked No204 in the world.
Raducanu then arrived in Melbourne after a delayed flight on Friday to discover that her opener against Mananchaya Sawangkaew had been scheduled as the second night match at the Margaret Court Arena on Sunday. She was due to hold only one practice session at 9pm on Saturday to replicate the conditions under the floodlights.
Preston, 20, comfortably beat Raudcanu 6-2, 6-4 in Hobart on Thursday
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Playing late is part and parcel of life as a tennis player, but Raducanu is reasonably a bit miffed as to why her match follows Alexander Bublik against Jenson Brooksby. The best-of-five set format makes it difficult for Raducanu and Sawangkaew to predict when they will start, with potential times ranging from 8.30pm to midnight. If the women were scheduled to play first, then it would be easier for Bublik and Brooksby to foresee their start time after a best-of-three-sets match.
“I think it’s very difficult to be scheduling women’s matches after a potential five-set match,” Raducanu, 23, said. “To me, it doesn’t really make as much sense, but I think after seeing it, the initial reaction is probably, like, ‘Oh, it’s a late one’. Then you deal with it, and you try to shift your day and adjust.
“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 [which followed a women’s match]. I played second night match then, but other than that I haven’t played that late.
“For me, it’s a new experience, something that I need to learn to do. Hopefully if I’m playing this game for a long time, I’ll probably be in this situation again, so it’s a good learning step to try to adjust, and deal with that day as well.”
Raducanu is playing at her fifth Australian Open. She has made it past the first round every time, but never further than the third
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As for her limited preparation in Melbourne, Raducanu added: “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 to turn it around and make the most out of what is in front of me. 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.”
Another challenge Raducanu faces on Sunday is an unheralded opponent. Sawangkaew, from Thailand, is ranked No195 and spent most of the second half of 2025 on the sidelines because of injury. When she returned last month, she quickly picked up momentum with a silver medal at the Southeast Asian Games before winning five matches in straight sets last week for a title on the third-tier ITF circuit.
“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. “I experienced that firsthand in 2021 when I went on a good run in a bunch of events. I had a lot of confidence. You feel very match-sharp.
“It’s a very dangerous opponent and a very dangerous situation to be in, so I think I’m ready for a tough one. Also, there is not as much data and information about these players. You don’t know that much about them, so there is that element of surprise, too. I just need to practise and do my best to be ready.”
There was a sense listening to Raducanu on Saturday that her expectations are not high here despite a seeding of No28. Her pre-season was heavily impacted by her foot issue and she was mostly restricted to fitness training.
“I pretty much started hitting on December 20, so it’s not been much time at all,” Raducanu said.
“After not playing for two months at the end of last year, I think I need to work on the serve. I got to a really good spot last year with it. I was dominating a lot of points getting my forehand into play. That’s something I need to continue to do more of, and I have confidence that given a little bit of time I can get that back on my serve.”
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Curiously, Raducanu also insisted that she had not made a deliberate tweak to her forehand. It was noticeable in her recent matches that she was taking a longer swing before making contact with the ball, but it now appears that this was unintentional.
“It’s something that probably happened in the last few weeks,” Raducanu said. “It’s not something that I really wanted to happen, so I need to look at that and shorten it, because I feel like it’s good in certain conditions when it’s a little bit slower. But on these very quick courts it doesn’t really work, so I need to adjust that.”