"If I lose 2,000 points so be it, I’ll start again from the bottom" - Emma Raducanu ahead of the US Open

Emma Raducanu will enter this year's US Open with the spotlight firmly attached to her. The youngster is set to defend her crown from 12 months ago, when she stunned the tennis world with her sensational run to a maiden Grand Slam title — as a qualifier.

The run at Flushing Meadows also saw Raducanu shoot up the world rankings and, ranked 20th, she is currently the second youngest player in the top 20. However, that could all change very soon as she has a lot of points to defend in New York.

Speaking about the pressure of having to defend 2000 ranking points at New York, Raducanu said in an interview with The Guardian that she was not worried about losing the points and slipping down the rankings. She stated that achieving the unthinkable of winning a Slam as a qualifier has given her enough confidence in her abilities.

“I just lost count how many times I’ve been asked this question,” Raducanu said. “If I lose 2,000 points so be it, I’ll start again from the bottom. I know I can do something that no one else has done. I qualified and won the US Open, so I can start from the beginning, I can start from zero and I’m not afraid of that.”

Raducanu added that she was still going through the development stage of her career and needed to carry on with the "journey" at her own pace.

“I just think that everything that’s happening right now has probably just meant to be in my journey and I need to go through those development stages at some point because I did miss them,” she continued. “I went from playing 25ks to winning the US Open.”

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"We just need to see how we compliment each other" - Emma Raducanu on new coach Dimitry Tursunov

Emma Raducanu recently hired Dimitry Tursunov as her coach for a trial period.

Emma Raducanu also spoke about her latest partnership with Russian coach Dimitry Tursunov, who has been training her in the lead-up to the Western & Southern Open.

The Brit said they were still testing how well they complement each other, adding that it was "too early" to have a definitive answer on where the pairing was headed.

“He’s here, we’re continuing the [coaching] trial,” Raducanu said. “It’s mainly, we just need to see how we work with each other, how we compliment each other. That’s it, I guess. It’s too early to tell.”