Top strength coach highlights Emma Raducanu’s biggest problem amid latest injury

A long-time Tour strength and conditioning coach thinks he has a pretty good idea of why some of the injuries happen to Emma Raducanu as Kieron Vorster highlights that the 21-year-old must play a lot more and also adds that he suspects the Briton may be surrounded by “yes people,” which reflects in her hearing only what she wants to be told and not what she should be told. 

During the 2022 and 2023 seasons, the 2021 US Open champion was heavily criticized for her constant injury issues and failing to stay healthier over a longer period of time. While the former world No. 10 has managed to stay relatively injury-free since launching her comeback from multiple surgeries, the truth is that she also hasn’t played that much this season since she has only taken part in 13 tournaments. 

After playing in just two tournaments during the summer on hard courts, Raducanu started the Asian swing in Seoul in mid-October. At the start of the event, the 21-year-old made it past her opening two matches but then was forced to retire injured in the quarterfinal against Daria Kasatkina.

As expected, a ligament injury to her left foot forced her to miss the ongoing WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing. 

“Hello, last week in Seoul I sprained some ligaments in my foot which unfortunately need some more time to heal (sad emoji). It means I can’t play in Beijing but I hope to be back competing as soon as I can,” the Briton wrote on X after it was reported that she was out of the China Open.

Vorster: Raducanu isn’t playing as much as she should be playing

Many times in the past, the British tennis star insisted to the media that she was working very hard in the gym and being very focused on building her strength. But the constant physical setbacks kept happening until she decided to have surgery on both wrists and her foot. 

Vorster, who worked in the past with some well-known such as Tim Henman, Wayne Ferreira and Dan Evans, confirms the 21-year-old didn’t lie when she was making those claims. However, he sees one thing that is the issue. 

“She just doesn’t play enough matches. I’ve seen her train and she trains hard, she works hard, there’s no doubting that. But you can train as hard as you like — if you don’t have that match fitness, your body is not hardened and robust enough to play match after match after match. You can practice until you’re blue in the face but you can’t replicate match conditions, that intensity and nerves when you’re 4-4 in the third serving at 0-30,” the strength and conditioning coach told The Daily Mail. 

This year, Raducanu has mostly been criticized for her scheduling decisions. After starting her clay season early, she didn’t play at the Rome Open and the French Open and went a month and a half without action. Then, the Briton skipped the Paris Olympics to focus on the North American hard-court swing – but only appeared in two tournaments in the US despite being perfectly healthy. 

“She plays an abbreviated clay court season, because she’s got a long grass court season and hard court season coming up and she doesn’t want to be burnt out or get injured. Then she was hurt against Lulu Sun in the round of 16 at Wimbledon, then plays one hard court event, goes to the US Open undercooked and loses first round. Now she’s pulled out of Asia, is that going to be all of a sudden, ‘I’m taking it off till the end of the year, so I get ready for Australia,’ and then the cycle starts again,” the trainer observed. 

Vorster: ‘Yes people’ may be Raducanu’s issue

When the former world No. 10 arrived at the US Open, she defended herself over playing only Washington leading to the final Slam of the year. However, her tone changed following a very disappointing first-round loss in New York and appeared to admit that she should have played more matches. 

“I think there could potentially be a lot of ‘yes’ people around her, instead of people telling her what she doesn’t want to hear, ‘You know what, Emma, you need to get out there and play’. She’s a good player. That’s not the issue. But this abbreviated schedule is just mind-blowing. There’s too many people around her. She’s got a guy from IMG traveling with her every single week. The tennis world’s gone crazy: gone are the days where you just have your coach and your physical trainer,” Henman’s former trainer added.

It remains to be seen if Raducanu will be fit enough to make her return in Wuhan next week.