Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about Emma Raducanu’s struggles with injuries and revealed the role that the Brit’s stunning US Open win has played.
Raducanu has battled a host of problems with her body in her young career to date, including in her last match, where she was forced to retire against Camila Osorio at the Qatar Open.
The world No 25 cut short her 2025 season in mid-October having struggled with physical issues at tournaments in Wuhan and Ningbo.
The 23-year-old’s preparations for the 2026 campaign were hampered by a bone injury in her foot that restricted her ability to train.
In May 2023, Raducanu underwent surgeries on both her wrists and her ankle, which ruled her out for the remainder of the season.
Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs — the world’s leading sports science and performance intelligence company — addressed whether Raducanu could do anything differently to prevent injuries.
“It’s hard when a young athlete like that is coming through and having such great success on the court,” Smith said.
“I think the lessons we can take from other sports, and apply them back to a young athlete like that that’s emerging, is all about periodisation.
“That’s one of the challenges that we’re now seeing with the global calendar within tennis, is the requirements in terms of the number of tournaments that they need to be involved in, it makes that even harder.
“So I think for her, what she’d like to be able to do is cherry pick the ones that are more important throughout the year and keep building in blocks of development work to ensure that she has that base, and she’s getting enough recovery to be able to adapt to the demands of a formalised professional career. And a formalised professional career where you’re expected to get success, you’re expected to make it to finals, you’re expected to pick up trophies.
Raducanu secured the only title of her career to date in remarkable fashion as she won the 2021 US Open as an 18-year-old ranked 150th in the world. She remains the only player in tennis history to win a Grand Slam title as a qualifier.
Smith assessed that Raducanu’s body was not ready for the big step-up in intensity and level of competition that came with playing on the WTA Tour regularly after her US Open win.