Emma Raducanu is ready for the 2025 season as her schedule to start the year has been revealed.
The 22-year-old went through a difficult 2024 campaign in which she was restricted to just 37 matches as she suffered injuries once again.
A foot injury caused her to miss the vast majority of the Asian swing and Raducanu also turned down the chance to play at the Olympic Games.
But the British number two is determined to put the fitness woes behind her and has made a change to her team to help make that happen.
Emma Raducanu makes a big move ahead of the 2025 season
The Telegraph reported in November that Raducanu was considering hiring fitness coach Yutaka Nakamura.
Now Raducanu has confirmed that she will work with Nakamura from next season. He has previously worked with the likes of Naomi Osaka and Maria Sharapova, and now he will aim to work his magic with the 2021 US Open champion.
He has joined Raducanu’s team alongside her coach Nick Cavaday, who she seems to have more stability following a period of multiple coaching changes since her success at Flushing Meadows three years ago.
“Yutaka is going to be with me a lot next year,” Raducanu said Friday in a press briefing. “We’re quite similar in the sense that we’re very focused with our work: we’re not, like, talking or chit-chatting about other things.
“It’s nice to have someone who’s on the same sort of wavelength as you. I think he is going to help me just really explore how far I can go, like, athletically.
“It’s a big strength of mine that I have nowhere near fulfilled. I think I can become one of the best athletes out there in tennis. And the way I’m working with him and Nick [Cavaday, her coach], it’s a lot more integrated.”
Where will Emma Raducanu begin pre-season?
It has been confirmed that Raducanu will fly out to Australia on Thursday, December 12. She will go through a training camp in Brisbane, before travelling to New Zealand to play in the Auckland Open.
Raducanu may also play at the subsequent Adelaide International, depending on her results in Auckland.
“I just want to get out in the heat a bit earlier,” Raducanu said. “I feel really strong, I feel really fit. The only thing I can’t really speak for, is I haven’t played that many matches.
“On the training court I feel amazing, I’m throwing myself around, but it’s different playing matches. I played a few at Fed Cup [now the Billie Jean King Cup], and I felt like I recovered well. I wasn’t tiring in the matches.
“It would just be good to see as the level increases, and if I have to play more [matches] back-to-back, how I’m going to react.”
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