Emma Raducanu must focus on long-term pursuit of glory as injuries take toll

Even in defeat Emma Raducanu digested her second-round loss at the French Open last month with striking positivity. Five months into a season of constant stopping and starting with various injuries, along with doubts she would even make it to Paris, a part of Raducanu seemed relieved to have finished a tournament in one piece: “It is definitely positive that I’m coming out of this match feeling pretty good physically,” she said.

It did not last long. Just over a week later, in her first match back on home soil on Tuesday, Raducanu was out of the Rothesay Open Nottingham with a side injury that forced her to withdraw during her first-round match against Viktorija Golubic.

Related: Scan gives Emma Raducanu hope she will be fit for Wimbledon

The news is not as devastating as it could have been. Raducanu has predictably withdrawn from the Rothesay Classic in Birmingham next week but it seems she will be healthy enough to resume her grass season in Eastbourne the following week and then Wimbledon. It is, however, yet another niggling injury that takes her from the court and away from her goal of improving, and her list of ailments over the past nine months makes for grim reading. It is a fairly normal occurrence for young athletes to struggle physically as their bodies adapt to the demands of professional sport and this is particularly true in tennis, with the added travel and adaptation to different surfaces, conditions, balls and opponents each week.

This seems a problem Raducanu was always going to have to reckon with since her injury proneness precedes her professional career. Her junior career was continually disrupted. “I had never played that many tournaments throughout the years because of various reasons, injuries,