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‘I’m at a turning point’: Raducanu sets life and career goals for the new year

British player has had time to reflect and wants to embrace enjoyment on and off the court in 2025

Emma Raducanu arrived in South Korea this September determined to end a complicated season with a strong Asian swing, her favourite time of year. She had started well, winning two matches at the Korea Open, only to suffer an all-too-familiar setback. Raducanu retired from her quarter-final match in Seoul with a foot injury that would sideline her until the final week of the season.

That layoff would prove to be a significant moment in Raducanu’s continued development. During her time off, she visited her grandmother in China, brushed up on her Mandarin Chinese, and she also flexed her creative muscles. Most importantly, however, another enforced layoff also gave her time to reflect frankly on the decisions she has made in her young career.

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Familiar problem surfaces with Virat Kohli closest of fading Fab Four to the end | Geoff Lemon

The once dominant batter is experiencing a Groundhog Day which suggests a mind that is tired of finding solutions

A little over a decade ago, cricket writing became all about the Fab Four. Steve Smith, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, each starting to flourish as Test batters, each clearly the future for their respective national teams. We said they would all go on to captain their countries, and they did, as they kept racking up the hundreds, piling up runs, a kind of transnational pact in relentless quality. Always playing against one another, they were nevertheless joined in their own smaller team, urging one another on, opponents to mediocrity.

These days none is captain any more, with a range of endings to their tenures that span civility to acrimony to scandal. They are all still playing though, elder statesmen in teams that enjoy their presence. Each of them is still the biggest name, the one greeted by most applause when walking to the middle and prompting most excitement from opponents sending them back. None is the team’s best player any longer, but their reputations make it feel as though they are.

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Gerwyn Price: ‘Having a break made me fall in love with darts again’

Welshman has had a poor year but says he has refound his spark with the world championship about to start

Gerwyn Price is giving a tour of his man cave. Built last year in the basement of his home in Markham, Caerphilly, it features a championship size snooker table, a pool table, armchairs upholstered from his former darts shirts, its own kitchen and bar, and a cinema room with starlit planetarium ceiling. “It’s a good place to get away when I need an hour to myself,” he says. “Probably play snooker more than darts. Which might be the problem!”

Highest break? “On that table? I’ve had a 96. Highest ever, 108. I won’t do a Shaun Murphy and lie about having a 147!” Price cackles, referencing the snooker player’s unverified and much ridiculed claim to have once hit a nine-dart finish in the pub.

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