Emma Raducanu pulls out of French Open qualifying to focus on grass-court season

The 21-year-old has made the surprising decision not to contest next week’s preliminaries in Paris.

Emma Raducanu has chosen not to play in French Open qualifying (Steven Paston/PA) (PA Archive)

Emma Raducanu will concentrate on training for the grass and hard-court seasons after withdrawing from French Open qualifying.

The 21-year-old had been expected to try to fight her way through three rounds of qualifying at Roland Garros, as she famously did on her way to the US Open title in 2021.

But Raducanu has pulled out of the preliminaries, saying in a statement: “It’s important for me to keep laying on the foundations and I will use the time to do a healthy block before the grass and subsequent hard-court seasons to give myself a chance to keep fit for the rest of the year.”

Raducanu entered the tournament using her protected ranking of 103 but she remains three spots outside the main draw and she was overlooked for a wild card.

She made a flying start to the clay-court season, beating French duo Caroline Garcia and Diane Parry to lead Britain into the Billie Jean King Cup Finals and then reaching the quarter-finals of the WTA event in Stuttgart.

Raducanu pushed Iga Swiatek in a last-eight loss but then put in a lacklustre performance against Argentinian qualifier Maria Lourdes Carle in the opening round of the Madrid Open last month, citing exhaustion.

She has not played a match since, pulling out of this week’s WTA event in Strasbourg, and this latest withdrawal comes as a big surprise.

The first main event of the grass-court season is the Rothesay Open in Nottingham beginning on June 10, although Raducanu could potentially enter the second-tier tournament in Surbiton the week before.