"Dust yourself down and take it from the top, life is a journey and this is mine" - Emma Raducanu puts ghosts of US Open loss to bed
Until recently, Emma Raducanu was in the Top-10 of the women's game, riding high on her 2021 US Open title run. Unfortunately, she was unable to defend her title in New York in 2022 and lost in the opening round at Flushing Meadows.
The loss meant that she lost 2000 ranking points from the event and fell to No. 81 in the world. Yet, the Brit took to social media yesterday to reveal that she was in good spirits and motivated to mount a charge back to the top.
"Dust yourself down and take it from the topš life is a journey and this is mine," wrote Raducanu in her caption.
In her press conference after her first-round match against Alize Cornet, the British teenager expressed a similar sentiment, stating that she was happy to have a clean slate to make her way back.
"But also, I mean, in a way happy because it's a clean slate. I'm going to drop down the rankings. Climb my way back up. Yeah, I mean, in a way the target will be off my back slightly. Yeah, I just have another chance to claw my way back up there," Raducanu said. "I've been doing some really good work in the last six weeks especially. Yeah, just looking forward to kind of putting more of those weeks together consistently, then we'll see what happens."
"With perspective, actually as a 19-year-old, I've had not a bad year; to be Top-100, if you told me that a year ago, I'd take it" - Emma Raducanu
At her press conference following the loss against Cornet, the Brit also showed remarkable maturity, stating that she was not too disappointed with the result since she would have taken being in the Top-100 a year back anyway.
Adding that her ranking made no difference to her off the court, Emma Raducanu assured fans that she was very much looking forward to starting fresh once again next season.
"I think in a way, yeah. It is a clean slate. I can just start again. I don't know what my ranking will be. Probably pretty low down. With perspective, actually as a 19-year-old, I've had not a bad year. To be top hundred, if you told me that a year ago, I'd take it," said Emma Raducanu.
"But, like, I think it would be nice in a way to kind of just start over, start fresh. I mean, off the court, I don't think it will make much of a difference, to be honest," she added.