Emma Raducanu has offered a curious excuse for her capitulation against Argentinean qualifier Maria Lourdes Carle in the R1 of the Madrid Open as she cited tiredness and being emotionally drained as the causes for her poor performance.
Randucanu was brutally drubbed by the Argentine with the score of 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hr and 26 min. The Brit conceded that she felt physically and mentally gassed out against the WTA #82.
The 21-year-old entered the match with a strapping on her left knee and delivered an error-filled performance in the Spanish capital to the disappointment of her fans.
“I would say the last few weeks have been a lot,” she said in the wake of the defeat.
“I think from the performance today it was very clear that mentally and emotionally I was exhausted.
“I was trying to push through and I was just unable to push through today. I guess the sport is just pretty brutal.”
Raducanu helped Great Britain beat France earlier in April to get a spot in the Billie Jean King Cup finals but team captain Anne Keothavong was highly critical of her subpar game against Carle.
Keothavong said that fatigue could have played a role but questioned the mentality of Raducanu after her thoroughly erratic performance against an opponent who had previously never won a Masters 1000-level match in her career.
However, Britain’s BJK Cup captain also thinks that it wouldn’t be fair to evaluate Raducanu’s game because of the latest setback in Madrid where she was not allowed to get out of the starting blocks.
“I don’t think you can analyze the tennis because Emma the performer didn’t show up today,” Keothavong said during Sky Sports coverage of the WTA 1000 event.
“And if any athlete doesn’t show up ready to play, you don’t really stand a chance. Credit her opponent, who came out with fire and energy and she was the one who looked up for it and was ready for the fight.
“We talk a lot about head, heart and legs, and if your head and your heart aren’t in it, your legs don’t stand a chance.
“It was really disappointing to see. She said she was tired, but do you talk yourself into more tiredness?”
Raducanu’s ability to fight back to the top 10 through hustling is lacking consistency and people are now questioning that whether the 2021 US Open champion could rely on sparse wildcards to float especially when it comes to majors and some of the biggest stages of tennis.