Emma Raducanu is back in the top 50 of the WTA Rankings after a year of progress, but the 2021 US Open champion could face a slide after she was handed a challenging Wimbledon draw.<\/p>\n
Raducanu<\/a> reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, with the 240 points she collected from that run set to drop off her ranking heading into this year\u2019s tournament at the All England Club.<\/p>\n If she fails to match her performance from last year at Wimbledon, the 22-year-old will slide backwards in the rankings and she may lose her status as British No 1 to Katie Boulter.<\/p>\n Raducanu will be a strong favourite to beat British teenager Mimi Xu in her opening match at Wimbledon, but she could then be in line to face 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in round two.<\/p>\n Vondrousova confirmed she is in red-hot form heading into Wimbledon after winning a WTA 500 tournament on grass in Berlin last week.<\/p>\n The 9 best Round 1 matches to watch at Wimbledon: ft. Raducanu, Eala, Gauff & Fonseca<\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu romance rumours set to be fuelled over the next few weeks<\/a><\/p>\n If Raducanu got through those two matches, she would be in line to face world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka and that would be a match she would be a big outsider to win.<\/p>\n The draw means Raducanu is likely to slide outside of the top 50 once again after Wimbledon and she is downplaying her hopes heading into the tournament with a back injury.<\/p>\n \u201cTruthfully I don\u2019t expect much from myself this year,\u201d said Raducanu. \u201cI know I\u2019ve just been dealing with certain things.<\/p>\n \u201cI just want to go out there and embrace the moment. I want to embrace the occasion. I know there\u2019s not many opportunities to be playing at Wimbledon. You get it once a year and for a finite amount of time. I\u2019m just looking forward to going out there and feeling the surroundings and the atmosphere.<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel like the way that I\u2019m going to do that is putting more time on the court.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe in the short term I feel a little bit more tired, but I know I\u2019m going to improve in the long run doing it. Even if I don\u2019t see the results straightaway, they will come.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, I love working, and I think that\u2019s the stage I\u2019m at right now is just to work, put the hours in, and get better.\u201d<\/p>\n Raducanu also commented on her status as British No 1, as she insisted the rivalry with Katie Boulter for that domestic itle is all friendly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great honor to be British No. 1. It\u2019s been a long time, but Katie is hot on my heels, a couple places behind me. I know she\u2019s such a great grass court player, such a great player in general,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a really difficult battle in the next few months, the rest of the season. For us, we have a really healthy, good relationship. I think it\u2019s nice to have, but it isn\u2019t everything to me.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Points and money earned by Maya Joint, Alex Eala, Emma Raducanu at Eastbourne<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Emma Raducanu facing rankings collapse after daunting Wimbledon draw<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emma Raducanu is back in the top 50 of the WTA Rankings after a year of progress, but the 2021 US Open champion could face a slide after she was handed a challenging Wimbledon draw. Raducanu reached the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, with the 240 points she collected from that run set to […]<\/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-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","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=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n