Emma Raducanu may find it advantageous to bring her 2024 campaign to an early close, allowing her to concentrate on a full recovery and to secure a protected ranking before staging a comeback in 2027, according to former British No. 1 Annabel Croft. The 23‑year‑old Briton suffered a stress fracture in the lower right leg during the grass‑court swing and ultimately made the difficult decision to withdraw from Wimbledon at the last minute. After consulting her medical team, Raducanu announced on Monday that she would also miss the upcoming US Open, a decision that was broadcast live on Sky Sports.
The news underscores the seriousness of her injury and the need for a period of rest beyond the usual off‑season. In professional tennis, a protected ranking is a rule that assists players who have been sidelined by injury for an extended period. The ATP and WTA have slightly different mechanisms. On the men’s side, a player may use a protected ranking calculated from the average of his ranking over the three months preceding the injury.
For women, the protected ranking is frozen at the level it was when the injury first occurred, and it can be applied to up to eight tournaments in a 12‑month window—or up to twelve events if the absence lasts longer than a year. This safety net enables a player to enter tournaments without having to start from the bottom of the rankings ladder.
Raducanu has only just begun tentative sessions on court, sporting a protective boot, and the latest setback adds another chapter to a frustrating twelve‑month period riddled with physical setbacks. On Sky Sports Tennis, Croft, now a television analyst, remarked, "She’s been unbelievably unlucky with injury problems. There are so many injuries out there, but it seems like she never gets a clear run where she can really go for it with her tennis, her body, her mind—everything—injury‑free, and just keep the momentum going." The sequence of health issues began with a foot injury that hampered her pre‑season preparation. That was followed by a post‑viral illness that kept her away from the court for roughly two and a half months after she fell ill in early February.
After a long hiatus, she finally returned for the tail end of the clay‑court season, reuniting with Andrew Richardson, the coach who guided her to the 2021 US Open title. However, their time together on court has been limited, and the partnership is still in its early rebuilding stages.
In June, Raducanu produced one of the best weeks of her career, reaching the final at Queen's Club – her biggest final since her breakthrough in New York. Unfortunately, the intense effort required to reach that stage appears to have triggered the latest stress fracture in her lower leg. The injury forced her to miss the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, as she was not selected for Great Britain’s squad in late September.
Croft observed, "I’ve seen lots of pictures of her posting with the boot on her leg, just trying to serve, to keep her racket moving, showing everyone she’s doing everything she can. But clearly, it’s not healed up." The former world No. 24 retired at 21 and now watches Raducanu’s battle with a mixture of empathy and professional insight.
The question now looms whether Raducanu, currently ranked No. 49, will be able to return in 2026 without a protected ranking. If she is sidelined for at least six months, she can invoke a special ranking for a limited number of events upon her comeback. This protected ranking would reflect her top‑50 position from the grass‑court season—the last time she competed and earned prize money.
Her ranking is at risk of slipping dramatically because she has a substantial amount of points to defend from last year’s North American hard‑court swing, which included strong performances in Washington, Canada, Cincinnati, and the US Open. Losing those points without a chance to defend them could see her tumble well outside the top‑100. Croft suggested that ending the season early might be a sensible choice: "It wouldn’t be a surprise if she made that decision. It wouldn’t be a bad decision because you can fully heal, rest up, get as much treatment as possible and then come out fully fit, raring to go at the start of next year." She added, "Maybe there’s a worry about the ranking drop with so many points to defend and potentially that ranking could plummet, although she might benefit from the protected ranking.
All of these factors have to be considered, don’t they? But at the end of the day, your health is your wealth, as they say, and that is the most important factor and she just needs to get herself fit." Croft also highlighted the unusual nature of Raducanu’s injury. "I’ve had calf muscle injuries, which were not nice at all. The minute you push off, you tweak it and it feels tight.
But the one thing I’ve always thought about Raducanu, particularly when we saw her at Queen’s Club on the grass where she played such beautiful tennis, is that she’s very light on her feet. Movement has always been one of her strengths.
She’s such a great athlete. She moves around the ball, she’s light on her feet and gets into great positions where she never looks off‑balance. Movement will be a major strength of what she brings onto the court, and that needs to be absolutely 100 percent." In summary, the combination of a stress fracture, a lingering post‑viral condition, and a series of missed training blocks has left Raducanu at a crossroads.
The protected ranking system offers a potential lifeline, but the decision to end the season early versus pushing through for the remainder of the year involves weighing immediate ranking concerns against long‑term health and performance sustainability. As the tennis community watches, many hope that a strategic pause will allow the British star to recover fully, regain her trademark agility, and return to the sport with the confidence and physical readiness that made her a Grand Slam champion.