Emma Raducanu acknowledged her preparation was hampered by a persistent foot injury after her 2026 season debut at the United Cup ended in a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 defeat to Maria Sakkari. The result eliminated Great Britain from knockout stage contention and followed Raducanu’s withdrawal from her earlier scheduled match against Naomi Osaka.

Raducanu described the match as a significant effort given her restricted off-season training. “Considering I played five, six games in practice, it is a big effort for me,” Raducanu said in the team’s post-match press conference.

“Really proud of how I kind of put myself out there, despite the scenario and situation. Also playing against Maria, who was playing really, really well. She also has a match under her belt, big win against Naomi.

“Yeah, to produce that level just by the circumstances, I have to be proud of even if it’s very difficult right now.”

After years of injuries, Raducanu enjoyed a strong return in 2025, cutting her ranking in half to finish inside the Top 30, helped by a Miami Open quarterfinal and three Grand Slam third-round showings. She worked with Francisco Roig last season and at Cincinnati pushed world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka to a final-set tiebreaker.

Raducanu said her on-court work only resumed recently and that she plans to compete at the Hobart International next week. “I started hitting two weeks ago,” revealed Raducanu, who intends to compete at the Hobart International next week, “so it’s been a good two and a bit months where I didn’t play. I did fitness. When I spoke to you I was doing fitness, started that.

“Yeah, it’s been difficult to kind of increase the load and add the unpredictability of the tennis. I think today, being able to produce that, having not played, is just giving me confidence to what I can do when I do practice more. I know now I just need to get my head down, keep working.”

She also experimented with a different racquet over the off-season but reverted for the match. “In a racquet, I probably was looking for a bit more power, a bit more help and miles per hour on the ball, especially when it gets so heavy like it can in the evenings and with the balls,” said Raducanu, who was seen experimenting with a Yonex racquet.

“I was just trying that out. This one didn’t work. Yeah, probably now I’ll just stick to this until I have another gap in the season.”

Ben Johnson has built @thetennis101 into a deliberate, cinematic entry point to modern tennis culture. To his 375,000 followers the feed offers training clips, equipment tutorials, behind-the-scenes glimpses and polished lifestyle reels that bridge sport and fashion. “You’ve got tennis, and it can be quite insular,” says Ben Johnson. “But then you’ve got the fashion side, which is huge. The gear, the racquets, the courts, the travel. That is where I see myself.”

Johnson launched the account on January 10, 2023 with a photo in Dubai alongside Holger Rune. His second post, eight days later, featured Novak Djokovic. He credits a return to playing during lockdown and a creative background—video and music from his youth, plus a career in social media and marketing—for the account’s direction. “I didn’t play for years,” says Johnson. “I just started playing again in lockdown.”

Two years ago he left his job to focus full time on the project. “This wasn’t meant to be my job, by the way,” Johnson says. “I left my job and I was like, ‘What the hell am I gonna do?’” Early viral clips on fundamentals — changing an overgrip, lead tape, forehand grip — grew his audience and opened doors to larger productions and brand work. “You have to sort of go down the funny viral route first,” Johnson says, “and then you can start introducing the sort of super niche, kind of luxury lifestyle tennis content that I do now—which is what I love to do, bigger productions with the music, the grading, the cinematic-esque filming.”

He has modeled for Lacoste and Ralph Lauren, worked on a campaign tied to the Rolex Paris Masters move, and has collaborations with other global brands. “Every job I take, I treat it as if it’s my own company,” says Johnson. I didn’t want to be one-dimensional. Ben Johnson

Johnson describes his work as both an introduction and a lookbook for tennis: approachable, curated and aimed at growing interest in the sport through a wider culture.

A good hitting partner remains the gold standard for practice: live feedback, varied ball response and match-like point construction. The Pongbot Pace S Pro tries to replicate those advantages with a ball machine that tracks your position and adapts feeds in real time.

The unit has a compact footprint (roughly 19x17x13 inches) and weighs just over 45 pounds. Metal grab handles aid lifting, and a telescopic pull handle with luggage wheels eases transport. A detachable 150-ball hopper covers capacity needs and a portable rechargeable battery supplies up to eight hours of power. A small side control panel includes an on/off switch, quick start/stop button and a USB port to charge a phone or other device. The robot remote syncs with an accompanying app and both the remote and three smart trackers recharge with the included 4-in-1 cable.

The Pace S Pro links to a smartphone via Bluetooth or can be run from the remote; the app offers a larger interface and proved less finicky in connectivity, though it requires a learning curve. There are 564 programmed drills ranging from simple repeating ground strokes to complex full-court multi-shot combinations. The machine can be placed at six court locations and will deliver feeds up to 80 MPH and 3600 RPMs. Feeds are highly consistent; jams are scarce and the reviewer’s single jam was a false alarm.

Custom drills permit sequences up to 46 balls with control over speed, spin, height and placement. A nine-ball sequence combining groundstrokes, an approach, volleys and overheads was used as an example. Custom drills can be uploaded to the expanding Pongbot app library for others to download or adapt.

The defining feature is the AI. Clipping three trackers—one on the net over each doubles alley and one to the player—enables Smart Pace modes. In adaptive rally the robot feeds where the user stands. Recovery triggers require return to a recovery zone before the next feed. Match challenge mode mimics point play, emits a beep when shot type changes and a double-beep when a point ends, and keeps a running score of “combos.” The AI adds genuine value, though position detection and shot sequencing sometimes proved spotty, and a pouch for the trackers would be practical.