If there is one thing that could salvage this year’s Wimbledon it would be a decent showing by the tournament’s undoubted star attraction: Emma Raducanu. Engulfed in a controversy of its own making since it banned Russians and Belarussians players in response to the war in Ukraine, and facing the loss of rankings points as a result, Wimbledon 2022 is desperately in need of a feel-good story and some positive publicity. The public will be similarly demanding. The US Open Champion may be expected to bear an especially heavy burden in her second Wimbledon appearance. But is it realistic, or fair, to expect her to shoulder it?
Raducanu has won just nine and lost 12 of her tour matches since Flushing Meadows and was most recently well beaten in the French Open by the Belarussian world number 47 Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Raducanu is ranked 12th). Various theories have been advanced to explain her apparent protracted ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’ slump.
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