Emma Raducanu was forced to retire from her second-round match at the ASB Classic in Auckland last week after rolling her left ankle; the Australian Open begins on January 16 in Melbourne; Raducanu: "Hopefully by Monday or whenever the tournament starts, I'll be OK and ready."
Monday 9 January 2023 20:15, UK
Emma Raducanu says she will "hopefully" be ready to play in the Australian Open next week, but is taking her recovery from an ankle injury "a day at a time".
The British No 1 was forced to retire from her second-round match against Viktoria Kuzmova at the ASB Classic in Auckland last week after rolling her left ankle.
The Australian Open begins on Monday 16 January in Melbourne, with Raducanu holding out hope she will have the opportunity to improve on reaching the second round in her main-draw debut last year.
"I'm just taking a day at a time, honestly, and just trying to, every single day try as best as possible to see and make progress," the 20-year-old said in an interview with Tennis Australia on Monday.
"And we'll see hopefully by Monday, or whenever the tournament starts, I'll be OK and ready.
"But we're just taking it a day at a time and not trying to expect too much at this point."
Bad weather in Auckland meant the match in which Raducanu suffered the injury was played indoors, and the Brit initially blamed the "slick" and "very slippery" courts for the incident.
The Auckland tournament director issued a response insisting the court was safe, but Raducanu maintains there was little she could have done to avoid the injury.
"I mean, it was really unfortunate, to be honest last week, because I was feeling great about my season and I was feeling really good with the preparation I did physically," she said.
"And I just had an accident on the court, which I don't know what I could have done to really prevent that."
Raducanu has endured a frustrating run of injury setbacks since announcing herself as a household name in the summer of 2021 by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon before going on to claim a remarkable triumph at the US Open.
She retired from matches four times in 2022 and most recently has had to contend with a wrist injury. Her ranking has dropped to 75 from a career-high of 10th.
The draw for the Australian Open takes place on Thursday.
