Raducanu turns to Agassi's Open for guide back to the top

Emma Raducanu is turning to Andre Agassi's autobiography as she tries to find a route back to the top of tennis. The Briton said Agassi's 2009 book, Open, has helped shape her thinking during another season broken by injury and illness.

Speaking in an interview with Uniqlo, Raducanu explained she has drawn on Agassi's experience of falling away and fighting back BBC Sport. Agassi's counsel was to concentrate on being the best of herself each day. He urged her to "be comfortable in your own identity" rather than measure herself by results or by what people say.

It is a striking choice of mentor. Agassi won the first of his eight major singles titles at Wimbledon in 1992 when he was 22. He then went four years without a major title and dropped to 141st in the world rankings, the points-based list that decides entries and seedings.

He rebuilt from there. Agassi went on to win all four Grand Slams, the sport's four biggest tournaments in Australia, France, Britain and the United States, and Olympic singles gold at the 1996 Games. His career is still held up as tennis's clearest example of a full reset.

Raducanu knows how fast the sport can lift and drop a player. At 18 she won the US Open as a qualifier, a player who must win matches in a pre-tournament qualifying competition just to reach the main draw. In doing so she became the first qualifier in the Open era to win a Grand Slam singles title BBC Sport.

She climbed to a career-high ranking of world No. 10 in July 2022. At the time of the report she had slipped to 98th. A foot injury disrupted her pre-season training, and she then spent two-and-a-half months off court with post-viral illness earlier this year.

A run to the final at Queen's Club in June was her biggest final since that New York triumph. She then missed the US Open while recovering from a stress fracture in her lower right leg, a small crack in the bone caused by repeated load.

Agassi will soon be courtside again. He will captain Team USA at the Laver Cup at The O2 in London on 25-27 September, the team event that pits Europe against the rest of the world.

What makes this stand out is patience. Agassi did not rush his comeback. He relearned how to practise, how to compete, how to win ugly. For Raducanu, that lesson lands. Form returns in small arguments, point by point.