Emma Raducanu has been advised that she needs to get used to playing smaller events because her career is in reverse. The British player was eliminated from Indian Wells on Monday after losing in straight sets to Aryna Sabalenka.

Raducanu, who missed most of 2023 due to surgery on her ankle and wrist, is still making progress toward her recovery. Before competing at Indian Wells last week, she had only won three matches since her return to action in early January.

With Sabalenka appearing to be Raducanu’s greatest challenge since her competitive comeback in the third round, this appeared to be the case. That turned out to be the reality as the Belarusian defeated Raducanu 6-3, 7-5.

However, tennis analyst Jonathan Overend has listed the difficulties he believes Raducanu would encounter to resume his career. He asserts that after experiencing such a high so early in her career, she now needs to become familiar with competing in and winning smaller tournaments.

Overend expressed his thoughts about Raducanu and said: “The big challenge for the life of Raducanu is that this is a career in reverse. She won a Grand Slam title in her teens; she’s done something virtually every other player will never get the chance to do and she’s already done it. Now she’s got to get used to working her way back up the rankings and playing tournaments that aren’t as high profile as these, but when they do come, she’s got to believe she can play at that level because she has already demonstrated it in her career.”

Emma Raducanu in 2024

At the moment ranked no.250, Emma played her last match on the 11^th of March when she lost to world no.2 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3 7-5 in the 3^rd round in Indian Wells (draw).

This season Emma owns an overall 5-5 match record.