Emma Raducanu was asked about practices during the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, and she admitted that there are some players who try to cheat.
There has been a lot of talk about practices recently because they’re a pretty interesting part of modern-day tennis. Most tennis fans are familiar with practice sets, which players play ahead of events.
Rafael Nadal famously almost never loses a practice set, and he’s just one of those players. More recently, the talk has been about how practices go because there are no umpires, so players call their lines themselves.
That is obviously not a bulletproof method because they can’t always see the ball that well all the time when it hits the ground. According to Raducanu, some players are so generous with their calling that they basically cheat during practices.
Coco Gauff was asked about the same thing at Wimbledon and shared the same opinion, even though she didn’t want to name any players. Raducanu was also asked about that; she confirmed it, though it doesn’t bother her. According to her own words, she laughs it off because practices ultimately are just that – practices.
“Yeah, I think I have. I’ve been hooked against. I think with me I don’t like calling my own lines. I feel like I can’t see, so I always try and ask someone I’m on court with to call the lines for me.”
“For me, when we’re in practice playing points, inch in or inch out, it doesn’t necessarily matter. It’s practice at the end of the day. I think for some players, it’s the biggest thing ever, so let them have it. It doesn’t really matter. Just gotta laugh it off.”
Matches are what matters, and for matches, there are umpires, challenges, robots, and all sorts of equipment to get the call right. Raducanu prefers to do most of the talking during matches, which is the correct thing to do.
