Emma Raducanu has made a change to her grass-court schedule after playing four matches in the space of three days at the Queen’s Club Championship.
The British No 1 finished runner-up to Donna Vekic at the WTA 500 event on Sunday as she made a poor start before fighting back only for the Croatian to come away with a 6-0, 7-6 (8-6) victory.
But there is no doubt that her busy schedule in London took its toll as she played her round of 16 match against Sorana Cirstea on Friday and then beat Kamilla Rakhimova in the quarter-final on Saturday afternoon before returning in the evening to knock out sixth seed Iva Jovic.
She looked a bit lost during the opening set against Vekic on Sunday, but eventually found her rhythm as she was two breaks up in the decider, only for the 29-year-old to bounce back and win via the tie-breaker.
Raducanu was due to play at the Nottingham Open this week and she was set to face former world No 1 Karolina Pliskova in the first round on Tuesday, but she has now withdrawn from the tournament with organisers confirming a change in schedule.
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The move did not come as a big surprise as she admitted during her press conference at Queen’s Club that she had been struggling in recent weeks.
“Yeah, I mean, I have just been dealing with a few niggles over the past few weeks, and of course the load I have had in the last week, it’s been a great problem to have, you know, playing this many matches. And doubling up yesterday, it’s not easy to kind of recover from,” she said.
“So, yeah, grass, these things can happen. You take a few slips. But I think overall I came through a challenging day yesterday. Yeah, I put myself in this position to be in the final.”
Raducanu jumped 11 places in the WTA Rankings to No 31 with her run to the final in London and she doesn’t have any points to defend in Nottingham, but she could still be overtaken by a few players.
And it is a crucial week in terms of the Wimbledon seedings as the cutoff date is next Monday.
It remains to be seen if she will sign up for next week’s Eastbourne Open, as she featured there last year, losing in the second round.
