Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has told Tennis365 that Emma Raducanu’s stress fracture in her leg is “the worst case scenario” for the British star.
Raducanu has been sidelined since her straight-set defeat to Donna Vekic in the final at the Queen’s Club Championships on 14 June.
The 2021 US Open champion withdrew from Wimbledon on the eve of the tournament, and it emerged that she had suffered a grade four stress fracture in her right shin.
The 23-year-old pulled out of the 2026 US Open almost a month before the start date after she had withdrawn from the WTA 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati.
The world No 59 has played only 21 matches in the 2026 season and holds an 11-10 record.
Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs — the world’s leading sports science and performance intelligence company — outlined the severity of Raducanu’s injury.
“A grade four stress fracture is the most serious classification. It indicates a near complete break — it doesn’t get much more serious than that,” Smith explained.
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“Generally, the recovery windows for an injury like that are anywhere from eight to 16 weeks, and often, it can even take longer.
“Maybe in other sports that are using other surfaces, it may be marginally less impactful, but the types of courts, the hard courts and hard surfaces that she’s been playing on… it’s probably the worst case scenario for someone like her.
“To have that in your shin, rather than even in your foot, it’s pretty indicative of some significant level of overload.”
After Raducanu ended her 2025 season early in mid-October having struggled with physical issues at events in Wuhan and Ningbo, her preparations for the 2026 season were disrupted by a bone injury in her right foot that restricted her ability to train.
Smith assessed that Raducanu’s sub-optimal off-season was likely a factor in her body breaking down.
“One of the risks of having a shortened or disrupted pre-season is it doesn’t allow you to build that base that you need,” Smith said.
“Obviously, that was the case for her, and unfortunately, that’s resulted in a breakdown. And an injury like this, it’s not a single event, it’s a degenerative thing where there’s multiple overloads.
“That would tell us that, certainly, the base needed for what was happening wasn’t there, and the result is what we’re seeing right now.
“So, I think we can suggest that the interruption to her pre-season has now reared its head.”
When he spoke to Tennis365 about Raducanu in January, Smith warned that her disrupted pre-season could have “a meaningful impact on the entire season”, and he even highlighted the risk of a stress fracture.
“If she has to overload that, or has to put too much stress and strain on a bone bruise like that, the risk for that is a stress fracture,” Smith said.
