Emma Raducanu - Melbourne Private Apartments Q&A January 2023

Welcome to Melbourne Private Apartments where luxury is the standard in this beautiful waterfront location. My name is Lana Murphy and today I'm joined by a very special guest, Emma Raducanu. She is Britain's number one tennis player, a US Open champion and a very proud guest of Melbourne Private Apartments. Welcome Emma. Thank you. Are you enjoying your stay here? Yeah very much so. I've been here a week now so yeah I'm looking forward to the tournament to get going. Amazing. We're in a pretty lovely location looking out at a nice view across the water here. I can imagine your view from your room's even better. How is it, you know, just talk me through the facilities and how you enjoy staying at Melbourne Private Apartments. Yeah it's been great. I mean we've been really using all of the facilities like we've been in the gym every day at the beginning more so. We've been in the pool every day doing a lot of recovery. Coming back from an ankle injury last week so it's been very very helpful to have that on site and just to be able to pop down and use it. Yeah it's been great for everything. And I guess how would you compare it to staying at your standard hotel? It's obviously pretty handy given you've got, you know, a few team members here and there's a bit of a crew going on. Yeah it's actually, it's been really, I really enjoy it because I quite like doing some things myself like some cooking, some meals, like breakfast. I'm a big breakfast person so I like to do it my own way and have my own routines and the flexibility and luxury to do that. So that's why I think I prefer it to a hotel at times. What does Britain's number one tennis player eat for breakfast? I'm very, I eat the same thing every single day. I think I have salmon three times a day and I basically like to make my own coffee and stuff in the morning and yeah froth my milk, just how I like it. Okay so I'll add more salmon to my diet, maybe I'll be as good as you, maybe go for a run or something. Location-wise how are you finding the proximity to the tennis centre you're getting to and from pretty easily? Yeah it's great. It's so easy to get to the site and the tram is like right outside so you can get into the city like really, really quick and easy so I think location-wise it's perfect. My team found a really good pizza spot that they've been going to and great coffee around like within minutes walking so we've been doing that every day too. I was going to say, given you say you make your own, have you also found a kind of go-to coffee shop and have you found the, have you had the Melbourne order yet? Have you heard of a Magic before? No, what is it? It's, do you know what, I don't really know. It's like two shots but only half of each shot so the equivalent to one shot. So it's just one shot. And then like a little dash of milk but it's not a long mountain. Okay. Next time you get a coffee shop, be like I'm in Melbourne, I'll ask for a Magic. Yeah, can have some Magic. Do you know the name of the pizza shop? Should we give them a shout out? The local place, not Domino's? I haven't ordered from it personally I'm saving that for maybe after the tournament. I think that's a very good plan. You have been in Melbourne a couple of times now, what is it that you love about our city? I love, I think the personalities in Melbourne. I think it's similar to back home in the UK in London. It's a great, it's a great vibe in the city. I think right now in the summer the weather's great too so it's just a lot of energy and I think the coffee's really good. I love that and obviously the sun. It's winter right now back in Europe so to get some sun is really nice too. Yeah, lap it up I think. You've been having a hit on the tennis courts today over at Melbourne Park, it's been pretty warm. How excited are you for I guess your match on Monday but also just the Aus Open and to be here and to be part of it? Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to playing on Monday. It's been a process to get onto the court but I'm really looking forward to getting there and I think that I'm really ready. I feel really good about my game and how things are going so yeah I'm just looking forward to it now. How does the AO compare to I guess the other Grand Slams throughout the year and does it kind of help you set yourself up for the year? Yeah, I think it comes so soon in the year that it's great to kind of see where you're at but I think that the AO is so good for the players and the hospitality. They treat the players really well, everything is taken care of so nicely so it's a tournament that all the players and everyone loves to be at. You've played some pretty spectacular tennis in the last two years. What do you think the last I guess 12 months has taught you about yourself? What have you taken out of the last year or so? I think I've probably taken resilience out of the last year. That's something I've been quite resilient, just having a few adversities and just overcoming them and not getting too disheartened and that's a lesson just to pick myself up quickly and just carry on and move on and I think I'm doing a much better job of that. You're smashing it. I guess the whole women's tournament looks really different now. There's a lot of big names that are kind of stepping down. It feels like a little bit of a changing of the guards. How does the tournament feel for you? How does it feel when you're going around playing? I think it's exciting. A lot of the players can win any tournament each week I think on the WTA tour right now which is cool. It gives everyone this sense of like oh I can do it and I think that's really good for the game. It's exciting for the spectators too not to just know who's going to win the tournament before it's even started. I'm quite enjoying it but it's obviously sad to see some so amazing legends step down after all they've done for the sport. We've loved watching your journey and I'm sure there's many more chapters to come so thanks for joining us.