Australian Open: Emma Raducanu falls to a shock three-set defeat to world no 98 Danka Kovinic

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Not much screaming this time, just wincing. And each time Emma Raducanu looked gingerly at her right hand, a nation felt her pain, too.

Not literally, of course. We’ve all had blisters, but not the way a tennis player has blisters. Marin Cilic broke down and cried in the middle of the 2017 men’s final at Wimbledon, over blisters. 

It isn’t as simple as putting a plaster on, when your whole job is about whiplash fast athletic movement. Raducanu was very gutsy with it, actually, but ultimately the blister defeated her. So did the world number 98, Danka Kovinic, from Montenegro, who enters round three of a Grand Slam for the first time. 

It is hard to imagine how that might have happened with Raducanu at full strength. But the US Open champion was greatly diminished, by the biggest of the little things. A crease in her right hand, hard to get to, was open and raw.

Some in her team thought she should pull out, prior to the match. Raducanu wanted to soldier on, as best she could. This was her first Australian Open and she was not going to wimp out. Within five games, though, she was plainly in trouble. 

The blister was on her serving hand, her forehand. So while the plaster covering it was little, the blister itself was big. Huge, really, in the way it threw Raducanu off-kilter. She raced to a 3-0 first set lead, as she had against Sloane Stephens in the first round, gave two games back and called a medical time-out. 

That’s never a good sign so early in a game but when it became obvious what the ailment was, there were immediate fears. Andy Murray has spoken of playing with the pain of blisters and how most professionals will have to deal with them at some time over a career. 

The issue becomes as much mental as physical. How to compartmentalise the pain. How to stop it overwhelming your game. Yet Murray is a veteran now. Raducanu is in her teens. 

This is her first full season on tour. She will never have been forced to cope with such a slight injury that can feel so completely impairing. It’s only a blister? Try telling that to someone whose whole job relies on touch, feel, subtlety and power and now cannot grip the tool properly.

For that is what happened to Raducanu. She stopped playing her game, stopped holding the racquet firmly, became limited in the shots she could play. She stopped playing power forehands and instead lent heavily, repeatedly, almost exclusively into a tricky forehand slice. 

And as Kovinic is a player who likes to rally at length from the baseline, there was an awful lot of painful back and forth. We knew it was painful because every now and then, between points, Raducanu would look at her right hand as if trying to think of a solution that was not grimacing her way through it. 

Still she stayed out there for 22 minutes shy of three hours, fighting.

And still celebrated fiercely when she won points. Still screamed in elation if she came out on top in a tight one, still fought with all her warrior heart for a place in the next round. 

And she came close, too. She won the second set without a forehand, which was remarkable no matter the opponent, and started promisingly in the decider, too. Kovinic saved one break point in her first service game, and two in the next, and perhaps that resilience ultimately wore Raducanu down. She couldn’t keep going to the well of reserve, physical and mental. Couldn’t keep surmounting this mountainous molehill of her injury. 

As the match slipped away from her there were a couple of games in which the spirit seemed to have left, too. It was a great pity to watch. Cynics will read all manner of negativity into a second round exit in her first Grand Slam after the US Open triumph, yet there was a lot more right about Raducanu here than wrong. 

She showed adaptability, courage, game intelligence, she did her damnedest in the face of adversity. And if she has demonstrated signs of struggle since that momentous day in New York, yesterday’s defeat must be set against the debilitating mitigation of an injured hand and a pre-tournament spell of covid that kept her out for three weeks. 

Those who argue a blister is nothing have probably never had to deal with anything remotely like it, in an elite, athletic context. They don’t understand.

It was puzzling for Kovinic, too, and she admitted as much. Every now and then, Raducanu would tear into a forehand, because the point was there to be won. Then she would go back to nursing her injury. 

‘I got confused,’ Kovinic admitted. Could she play, could she not play?’ Undoubtedly in the second set that Raducanu won 6-4, her opponent failed to take advantage of the situation. 

Too often she would play to the Raducanu backhand, which seemed largely unaffected. ‘When I started focussing on my game and not worrying about her it got better,’ Kovinic said. That was in the final set, won 6-3.

Later, Raducanu explained the gory details. ‘It’s just the position of it,’ she said. 

‘It’s right in the crease of the palm, it’s so deep. I just can’t grip the racquet. Like every time I hit, every time I make contact with the ball, it creates an impact. If I hit one slightly off centre and the racquet moves a bit in my hand, it’s even more friction and it rips again. So it’s very painful, every single shot I hit.

‘I have been struggling with blisters since I started playing in Australia because 21 days with no tennis my hands got pretty soft. From day one, I was getting blisters. 

‘This particular one has been with me for about five days, and I have been trying to tape it for every practice. It would harden and dry out, but then once I played again, another layer would just rip off. It’s just in a very awkward position that’s difficult to tape. 

‘We have tried so many different alternatives, and they all end up falling off or leaving me with no feel of my racquet. But I fought so hard just to come out and play here, I didn’t want to go out like that.’ 

So she struggled on, even if the end was maybe even a blessed relief. Next up it transpires would have been former world number one Simona Halep. 

‘Yeah, I don’t think you’re getting very far against Simona with only a slice forehand,’ Raducanu added. ‘I’m not going to lie.’ 

It was not what she hoped Australia was going to be, but it was not the rude awakening it may appear on paper. New York was no fluke. We have one here.. We have a player. She will get harder in time; like her shell, like her skin. 

It was clear how much the blister was bothering her as she winced during further treatment but she was able to hit out more early in the decider.

Kovinic got the better of a series of tight games, though, with the match briefly disrupted while a seagull flew circuits of Margaret Court Arena.

Raducanu tried to find a way back but it was Kovinic who prevailed to became the first player from Montenegro to make it to the third round of a slam.

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