Emma Raducanu has revealed her latest, and possibly most gruesome, injury since turning professional - losing her toenails.
The British No 1 has suffered a string of physical set-backs since her remarkable breakthrough at the US Open last autumn, with blisters hampering her attempt to make progress at the AustralianOpen in January and being forced out of the Guadalajara Open with a hip problem.
Now, ahead of her debut for Great Britain in the Billie Jean King Cup qualifier against the Czech Republic in Prague, Raducanu has disclosed she has been struck down again.
"I have no toenails," she said, when asked for an update on her physical condition. "It was just my foot, my shoes, they've just been sliding around a lot [in the shoe]. I had a small niggle in Miami but now I have no physical thing."
The strange-sounding affliction was not caused by a freak accident - or trying out a pair of killer heels from her sponsor, Dior - but is, in fact, a relatively common occurrence in sportspeople where the toenails fall out due to a series of small impacts over a prolonged period. It would seem that this is what happened with Raducanu as she dealt with a gruelling match and practice schedule.
The revelation was greeted with giggles from her British team-mates Harriet Dart, Katie Swan and Sonay Kartal, who is in the GB squad for the first time. Captain Anne Keothavong even suggested the 19-year-old's ailment had helped the team to bond this week.
"I've always said these weeks are different to what they experienced at the usual kind of tennis tournaments and it's really important that, as a team, we can create memorable moments. I think we've been doing so. And we're all a little scarred by Emma's toes!" she said, laughing.
Britain have never won the Billie Jean Cup or its previous incarnation, the Fed Cup, while the Czech Republic are 11-time champions. The tournament, which concludes in November, marks another key milestone in Raducanu's development, with her match against 22-year-old world No 32 Marketa Vondrousova this weekend at the Czech Lawn Tennis Club representing her first professional outing on clay.
