Emma Raducanu has revealed she has changed her mindset after a challenging start to 2025, with her broad smile on evidence once again after beating Suzan Lamens in her opening match at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid.<\/p>\n
The 2021 US Open champion took a break from the WTA Tour following her run to the Miami Open quarter-finals last month and embarked a training block with her part-time coach Mark Petchey ahead of the clay-court swing.<\/p>\n
That work appeared to reap reward as Raducanu beat Lamens 7-6(4) 6-4 in an impressive opening to her clay court season.<\/p>\n
In what was her first WTA Tour win on clay since 2022, with her previous one coming at the French Open and she admitted she was pushed all the way by Lamens.<\/p>\n
World No 73 Lamens again made a strong start to the second set and moved 2-0 up, but Raducanu responded to break twice and served out at the first time of asking and she won the key points when the pressure was applied.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI know I had to play really well to win and although it wasn\u2019t always my best, I got stuck in at the right moments,\u201d said Raducanu in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu takes No 1 ranking in alternative tennis list as she closes in on Katie Boulter<\/a><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu hits out at \u2018judgement\u2019 she faces and breaks her silence on next coaching appointment<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m proud of how I competed. It is a strength of mine when I can use it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s for sure different stepping into the competition, especially on clay. I haven\u2019t played many matches on this surface, so it does feel a little foreign to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Raducanu had been especially open in her comments prior to her opening match in Madrid, as she admitted she allowed the criticism and scrutiny she gets with each and every move to affect her mindset.<\/p>\n Speaking to Sky Sports Tennis, she expanded on that mindset shift and suggested she may have put too much pressure on herself to reach out for perfection.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I have realised I don\u2019t need to be switched on 200 per cent of the day, which is what I am usually like,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t need to suffer or be so down, be so focused. I think I can enjoy myself and have fun.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be relaxed and then when I go on the court, I feel I am switched on. There is a time and a place for everything.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have won my first match on outdoor clay in years means a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cI am working my way into it, I don\u2019t think I am the finished product by far, but I am very happy I gave myself another opportunity to play and bank even more experience.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a big mental challenge. [Lamens] has had a lot of wins on clay, so I knew she was in form and I didn\u2019t necessarily feel that way before the match.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m proud of how I competed. It is a strength of mine when I can use it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s for sure different stepping into the competition, especially on clay. I haven\u2019t played many matches on this surface, so it does feel a little foreign to me.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m happy with how I kind of worked my way into the match. I played an opponent in great form who has won a lot of matches on clay so I knew I had to play really well to win. I don\u2019t think I played my best level, but I think I competed really well.\u201d<\/p>\n The win against Lamens fired Raducanu up to No 47 in the live WTA Rankings and a win in her next match against Marta Kostyuk would fire her closer to the target of a place in the top 32 of the rankings and a seeding for the French Open.<\/p>\n She is also closing in on a prize money breakthrough at this week\u2019s Miami Open, as Raducanu currently has career prize money of $4,905,443 and she will need a run to the quarter-final in Madrid to break through the \u20ac5million barrier.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Emma Raducanu ends three-year clay drought at Madrid Open as encouraging stats emerge<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Emma Raducanu closing in on prize money breakthrough as she makes telling confession<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emma Raducanu has revealed she has changed her mindset after a challenging start to 2025, with her broad smile on evidence once again after beating Suzan Lamens in her opening match at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid. The 2021 US Open champion took a break from the WTA Tour following her run to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n