Australian Open 2026: Emma Raducanu loses in second round – what went wrong?

Raducanu made encouraging progress last year, climbing back into the top 30 in the world and playing in more events than in any previous season.

But the defeat means she has only progressed past the third round of a Grand Slam once since her stunning victory at the U.S. Open as a junior qualifier in 2021.

Her preparations for her first major of the season were disrupted. She planned to spend the offseason working on technique with coach Francisco Roig, who helped Rafael Nadal win 16 of his 22 Grand Slam titles but was hampered by a foot injury.

When Raducanu returns in 2026, her forehand adjustments — a higher, longer return designed to add more spin — are evident.

But she seemed less confident with her groundstrokes against Potapova, hitting 70 percent of her forehand returns (compared to 96 percent for her opponent) and committing 19 unforced errors from that wing.

“I want to play in a different way. The inconsistency between how I want to play now and how I want to play is something I want to address,” Raducanu said.

Everything went wrong in every aspect of Raducanu’s match against Potapova, with the Briton saying afterwards that she didn’t feel “well” from the start.

This manifests itself in understated performance. In addition to seeming to lack trust in her shot, she was emotionally flat and rarely interacted with the support box or the crowd.

This is the first time Raducanu has been defeated by a lower-ranked player in a major since the 2022 U.S. Open, when she was still ranked 11th in the world.

“I just wanted to hit the ball hard into the corner. I felt like I was doing all sorts of things, but it wasn’t going to have the effect I wanted,” she added.

“I need to work on playing in a way that’s more similar to when I was younger.”