AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — Former U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from the Auckland tennis classic, saying a back injury she has been nursing in recent weeks had not improved as much as she hoped.
The 22-year-old British player was seeded sixth for the tournament and was due to play her opening match of the new season on Tuesday against Robin Montgomery of the United States.
"I’ve tried my best to be ready. I love Auckland and the fans here. But unfortunately I’ve picked up a back niggle and I won’t be ready in time,” Raducanu said.
Second-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium also withdrew on Tuesday from the tournament which is a tune-up for the Australian Open beginning Jan. 12 in Melbourne.
“I am sorry not to play my singles due to an injury,” Mertens said. “I wish the tournament all the best and hope to be back next year.”
In a pre-tournament news conference on Monday Raducanu expressed optimism for the new season. She finished her 2024 season on a high, winning all three of her singles for Britain at the Billy Jean King Cup.
'So that’s like a good stepping stone after three surgeries the year before," Raducanu said. "And I think this year I’m just ready to push on and build on and I’ve really kind of taken measures and steps to do that with my team and how I’m operating and how I’m feeling about things. So, I’m looking forward to this year.”
Raducanu's career has been regularly hampered by injuries and she recently hired fitness coach Yutaka Nakamura to join her team. Nakamura accompanied her to Auckland.
The 2021 U.S. Open champion returned to tennis last year after undergoing surgery on both wrists and an ankle. But she was sidelined for several weeks late in the season by a foot injury.
Raducanu fell out of the top 300 during her injury struggles but fought her way back to 56th through 2024. The Auckland event would have marked the first time in almost two years she has been seeded in a tournament.
“I haven’t been seeded in a while,” Raducanu said. "It doesn’t really make a difference though. I feel like everyone and the depth of the women’s game right now is so strong that literally anyone can win any tournament.”
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Emma Raducanu of Britain returns a shot during a practice session at Manuka Doctor Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, ahead of the ASB Classic tennis tournament. (Alan Lee/Photosport via AP)
Emma Raducanu of Britain returns a shot during a practice session at Manuka Doctor Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, ahead of the ASB Classic tennis tournament. (Alan Lee/Photosport via AP)
President Joe Biden on Thursday awarded the second highest civilian medal on Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry.
Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony in the East Room, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president's longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
“Together, you embody the central truth: We’re a great nation because we’re a good people," he said. "Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages and it’s what all of you embody.”
Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.
Cheney, a Republican former Wyoming congresswoman, and Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection. The committee's final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump “lit that fire.”
The crowd erupted in loud cheers and stood when Cheney took the stage. Biden clasped her hand and gave her the medal. The announcer said she was being given it “for putting the American people over party.”
Cheney, who lost her seat in the GOP primary in August, later said she would vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and campaigned with the Democratic nominee, raising Trump's ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.
Thompson also got a standing ovation.
Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he is back in the White House.
During an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press,” the president-elect said that “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," claiming without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected.
“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.
Cheney and Thompson were “an embarrassment to this country" for their conduct on the committee, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung asserted.
Biden also awarded the medal to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.
Other honorees included Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women's rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.
He bestowed the honor to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Other former lawmakers honored included former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.
After he presented the awards, he went back to the lectern to ask lawmakers in the room to stand, as well as John Kerry.
“Let's remember, our work continues," he said to the room after he thanked the families in attendance for the support they gave to the nominees. We've got a lot more work to do to keep this going.”
Biden honored four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young"; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.
The Presidential Citizens Medal was created by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes people who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
This combo photo shows Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., speaking during the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago, left; and Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney speaking during a town hall with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at The People's Light in Malvern, Pa., Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, right. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley/Matt Rourke)
President Joe Biden makes a statement on the latest developments in New Orleans from Camp David, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
