Raducanu had five covid tests to play in Austria

Emma Raducanu will play her first match at the TipsArena in Linz tomorrow against either Kateryna Kozlova of the Ukraine or Wang Xinyu of China.

The event’s No.1 seed said she had to go through a number of covid tests in order to play the event, but happily all went well.

“I had five negative PCR results,” she said.

“I’ve been feeling the ball well here and I’m in as good a place as I can be and just looking forward really, really positive for this week.”

Raducanu arrived in the Austrian city on Saturday to be greeted by fans – a far cry from earlier this year, when the then unknown player was in covid lockdown.

“January, February, March, I didn’t pick up a tennis racket really,” she said. “March 18 was my first session on court in 2021.

“I was literally just sat at my desk staring at a wall for nine hours a day so I feel like, where I am now, I just need to really take it all in and enjoy it because, looking back at how far I’ve come, it’s pretty surreal and I just really need to enjoy it because at the beginning of the year I never would have thought it was possible.”