Emma Raducanu faced a challenging health setback during her Australian Open match against Wang Yafan, revealing the extent of her struggle in a post-match interview.
The 21-year-old, in her fourth match since returning from an eight-month injury hiatus, encountered a sickness bug that significantly impacted her performance on the court.
Despite battling the illness throughout the three-hour contest, Raducanu fought valiantly against Wang, ultimately succumbing to a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 defeat.
Early in the third set, she underwent a blood pressure check by a doctor, highlighting the severity of her condition.
Notably, Raducanu managed to stage a comeback after falling two games behind in the deciding set, prompting the intervention of a medical professional. The doctor prescribed medication to alleviate her symptoms, underscoring the extent to which health challenges affected her performance.
In a post-match reflection, Raducanu candidly opened up about the physical toll of the illness, revealing that she had experienced such discomfort that she vomited during the match.
“Now I feel a little bit better. During the match, I’d say in the third set I was 30-Love up serving. Then all of a sudden, I just felt so sick, just really weak and nauseous. Throughout the third set I think everyone could see it was a bit of a battle.”
“Like physically, body-wise, I felt fine. It was more that I was throwing up in my mouth. Then after the match, it came out. Now I’m okay. Yeah, I’ll get over it. It just sucks with the timing. I felt good. I felt fine. Yeah, I just had a bit of a bug.”
“Honestly I’ve been in that situation before in matches, whether it was with illness or injury, and retired a few times. I think, to be honest, with what I went through last year, you feel awful right now, at some points I couldn’t really see the ball very well.”
“But I think with everything I went through last year, it’s made me so much tougher. There was no way I was going to pull out. She was going to have to beat me, and she did. She served it out.”
“I think the last year off and also just with the amount of niggles and everything that I had, the setbacks, it did make me a lot tougher.”
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