Emma Raducanu's Comeback Inspired by Agassi's Journey

Emma Raducanu’s comeback plan has an unlikely co‑pilot: a 17-year-old book.

As she tries to drag her career back towards the heights of that surreal New York fortnight, the Briton has been poring over Andre Agassi’s 2009 autobiography, looking for clues in someone else’s scars.

Five years have passed since Raducanu stormed through qualifying and then the main draw at the US Open without dropping a set, an 18-year-old outsider who rewrote tennis history as the first qualifier in the Open era to win a Grand Slam. The rise was so steep it almost defied logic. The descent has been far more familiar: injuries, expectation, scrutiny, and a ranking that now reads 98 in the world.

Somewhere in that turbulence, she found Agassi.

Learning from a kindred prodigy

Agassi was once tennis’s most dazzling young thing, a teenage prodigy who turned commercial appeal into major titles. He claimed the first of his eight Grand Slam singles crowns at Wimbledon in 1992 at 22, a rock star in acid colours conquering Centre Court.

Then came the crash.

Between his peak years, Agassi went four full seasons without a major, his ranking collapsing to 141. The former world number one suddenly found himself adrift, fighting doubts as much as opponents.

Raducanu has been drawn to that chapter of his life.

“I was especially intrigued by the passage where he got out of his slump in the late 1990s by creating his own training regimen and finding his way back to the top,” she told Uniqlo. “It speaks in depth about his early successes and the lows he reached, perhaps as a result of them. A lot of it was so relatable.”

Relatable is doing a lot of work there. Raducanu reached a career-high of 10 in July 2022. Since then, her body has too often refused to cooperate. A foot problem disrupted pre-season. A post-viral illness forced her off court for two and a half months earlier this year. Most recently, a stress fracture in her lower right leg ruled her out of the US Open, the scene of her defining triumph.

The shine of 2021 has been replaced by something more jagged, more human.

Agassi’s words still land

Agassi always hoped his story would be useful to someone living through their own version of that spiral.

“It was literally the hope that if one person read it and it gave them hope, some tools to understand that they're not alone, they can figure it out and get to a healthier place without having to direct their frustrations at the game of tennis, then it was a success for me,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“So, hearing that 17 years later it can still impact somebody, especially in this game, it does make me feel good.”

The connection is not just about results, but about identity. Agassi spent much of his early career playing a sport he didn’t love, pushed by a father who introduced him as a future number one. The pressure bred “fear”. Only when he tumbled from the top spot to 141 did he finally feel able to reconnect with tennis on his own terms.

From that point, he says, came greater success than anything he achieved while playing scared. He built a foundation to provide education for under-served children, stepped outside the tour’s bubble, and found perspective that sharpened his tennis rather than diluted it.

“The first thing I would advise a parent to think about is that it's not their life, it's their child,” he said. “You raise a child in their way and they'll never depart from it. You just have to find out what their way is.”

Raducanu, like so many young stars, has had to discover “her way” under an unforgiving spotlight.

A different kind of perfection

Asked what he would say directly to Raducanu, Agassi’s answer cut to the core of what comes next for her.

“I would encourage her to focus on being the best of herself on a daily basis, but don't judge that by results or thinking that somehow you have to be 100%,” he said.

“You have to learn to be 100% of whatever percent you're at [and] be comfortable in your own identity inside of that – not what people say.”

That last line lands differently in 2024. Agassi could simply “put down the paper” and disappear from the noise. Raducanu lives in an age where the noise lives in your pocket.

“Now it seems like it's harder for these youngsters to avoid,” he added.

Yet even amid the setbacks, there have been signs of life. At Queen’s Club in June, Raducanu pieced together one of the strongest weeks of her career, reaching her biggest final since that night in New York. The ball-striking looked clean again. The belief, if only for a week, seemed to match the talent.

For a player who has been forced to measure her progress in weeks rather than seasons, it mattered.

The game, the grind, and London’s next stage

Agassi knows the grind better than most. He completed the career Grand Slam, won all four majors, and stood on top of an Olympic podium with singles gold at the 1996 Games. His résumé is complete; his relationship with the sport is still evolving.

This week, he returns in a different role, captaining Team USA at the Laver Cup at The O2 in London from 25–27 September. A man who once described tennis as a “hamster wheel” still marvels at the players who willingly jump back on.

“Tennis is a hamster wheel of sorts – the fact that these guys make room in their schedule to play this incredible event tells you how great this event is,” he said.

“We're obviously playing Team Europe, in Europe, so I don't know where the crowd is going to have their heart. But I know one thing – they're going to see some spectacular tennis.”

Raducanu will not be part of that show. Her work, for now, is quieter: rehab, rebuilding, and reading the story of a champion who fell further than most and climbed higher than many thought possible.

Agassi’s journey did not run in a straight line. Neither will hers. The question, as she turns each page and plots each step back, is whether she can turn those relatable lows into the kind of second act that defines a career rather than just starts one.