Emma Raducanu will not take part in this week's Melbourne tournament; event is one of several warm-up events for the Australian Open; the world number 19 is scheduled to compete in the Sydney Classic later this month in preparation for the first Grand Slam of 2022
Saturday 1 January 2022 16:38, UK
Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from an Australian Open warm-up tournament in Melbourne having just come out of isolation after returning a positive Covid test.
Raducanu, who was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours list having won the US Open in September, had pulled out of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship exhibition event in Abu Dhabi last month after contracting the virus.
The 19-year-old was scheduled to headline one of the two women's WTA 250 warm-up tournaments taking place at Melbourne Park from January 4-9.
"The timing to compete in the first Melbourne event this week is too soon for me, having just returned from isolation," Raducanu was quoted as saying by the organisers.
The world No 19 is scheduled to compete in the Sydney Classic later this month before making her debut in the January 17-30 Australian Open.
Britain has a new golden girl and her name is Emma Raducanu.
One minute she was preparing to sit A-Levels in economics and maths, and the next, the then 18-year-old from Bromley, Kent was lifting the US Open trophy and collecting a cheque for £1.8 m.
Raducanu won 10 matches at Flushing Meadows, all in straight sets, to become the first qualifier to make it all the way to a Grand Slam title and the first British woman to win a major since Virginia Wade's famous 1977 Wimbledon success.
Her stunning 6-4 6-3 victory over Leylah Fernandez in the final earned a spot on the red carpet at New York's fashionable Met Gala and a place in the nation's heart forever. Quite a fairytale!
Raducanu was a rookie who had never so much as won a WTA Tour match, and who played her first major tournament only a couple of months earlier at Wimbledon.
It was at the All England Club that Raducanu showed the British public and the tennis world what a special talent she is, reaching the fourth round before she was forced to withdraw due to breathing difficulties against Ajla Tomljanovic.
Ranked 343 at the start of 2021, Raducanu finished the year as only the fifth British woman to make it into the world's top 20 despite playing in just 10 tournaments.
Her preparation for the Australian Open did not begin in the best of circumstances after she contracted COVID-19 in Abu Dhabi, but she was in high spirits when collecting the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award while in isolation.
What about her chances of more Grand Slam glory in 2022? Well, Raducanu has appointed an experienced and nurturing coach in German Torben Beltz and is focused on catching up physically to her peers as she prepares for her first full season in the sport.
Whether she goes on to win more titles next season or in the future remains to be seen but Raducanu has changed the landscape of British tennis and there could be a very exciting decade to come.
