"She’s that good": Tim Henman backs Emma Raducanu to overcome poor run of form

Former Britain’s number one Tim Henman has backed Emma Raducanu to overcome her recent struggles. The 22-year-old was once regarded as the next big thing, especially when she lifted the US Open at the age of just 18 in 2021.

However, since then, Raducanu has found it hard to maintain consistency, largely due to fitness concerns. She returned to the court in 2023 but has not been able to produce good results consistently. This year has been no different.

Raducanu has suffered three first-round exits from her last three events and is now set to take the court in Dubai, where she has been given a wild card entry. Previously, the former world number 10 was criticised for not playing enough events, something that has changed this year.

Former Britain’s number one Henman has recently spoken to Sky Sports where he backed the youngster to regain her form by playing more competition. The 50-year-old believes that by staying more on the court, Raducanu will eventually return to her very best.

“If she can stay healthy and competes a lot, the results will come because she’s that good,” said Henman. “If she wasn’t good enough, you’d say she has to pick her tournaments and play some weaker events. With Emma, if she stays healthy, I’m convinced the results will follow. I never thought it was about her level. When she has played, her level has always been very good, but if you look at the breakdown of her ranking last year, I think she played 33 matches and 11 of them were on grass. When you look at the other 10 months of the year, to have only played 22 matches is so few. She is aware of that, I’m sure, and she will get a coach at the right moment, but for me, the physical work she is doing is most significant. I’ve always been a big, big advocate of playing matches. I always played a lot of matches and Emma is right to do that now.”