{"id":387334,"date":"2026-01-04T12:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387334\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T12:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T12:50:09","slug":"emma-raducanu-british-no-1-withdraws-from-opening-match-at-united-cup-due-to-unknown-injury-tennis-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/387334\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu: British No 1 withdraws from opening match at United Cup due to unknown injury | Tennis News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emma Raducanu withdrew from her opening match at the United Cup due to an unknown injury – but Great Britain captain Tim Henman is hopeful she will not miss the entire tournament.<\/p>\n

Raducanu, 23, was scheduled to play against Japan’s Naomi Osaka in Perth on Sunday, only to pull out and be replaced by Katie Swan in the women’s singles.<\/p>\n

Henman told Australian broadcaster Nine that Raducanu, who has not played since ending her 2025 season in October after a bout of illness in China, was “very, very close” to playing.<\/p>\n

\"Emma<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Raducanu ended her 2025 season early in October after illness<\/p>\n

“It was not any easy decision. She had been building up and practising really well. I don’t think she is necessarily out of this tournament just yet.”<\/p>\n

Britain, who defeated Japan 2-1, next face Greece on Monday.<\/p>\n

Billy Harris – a replacement for the injured Jack Draper – beat Shintaro Mochizuki 7-6 (6-4) 6-3 on Sunday before Swan lost 6-7 (4-7) 1-6 to four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka.<\/p>\n

Doubles pairing Neal Skupski and Olivia Nicholls clinched the tie for Britain as they defeated Yasutaka Uchiyama and Nao Hibino 7-5 4-6 10-7.<\/p>\n

“The spirit has been so good since we arrived in Perth,” said Henman. “Their work ethic and the camaraderie has been absolutely outstanding. My request was for them to go out there and enjoy the challenge and compete for every point.”<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Billy Harris put GB 1-0 up in their United Cup tie with Japan in Perth<\/p>\n

In the United Cup, 18 countries are split into six groups of three and play the other teams in their pool once each before the six group winners and two second-placed teams reach the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

Each tie consists of one men’s, one women’s and one mixed doubles match.<\/p>\n

Watch the United Cup and lots more tennis live on Sky Sports in 2026. Stream tennis and more top sport contract-free with NOW.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Raducanu withdrew from her opening match at the United Cup due to an unknown injury – but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-387334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}