She came to the US Open to gain her first experience. Hoping to earn at least new headphones as she lost her favorites during qualifying. He fights his way to the first or second round and goes home with a good feeling.
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Everything is different. Women’s tennis will be different from now on. The British Emma Raducanu flew into it like a comet. At the age of eighteen, she won a grand slam title. Unexpected. According to many, even the most shocking in the history of women’s tennis.
Two teenagers without a past – Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez – offered the world an absolute extra class on Saturday. Final masterpiece. Tennis of the future. The British native from Toronto defeated the Canadian from Montreal 6: 4, 6: 3.
Like a collector
Raducanu played only four WTA events before Flushing Meadows. Just for information: Rafael Nadal was 19 when he won the first grand slam (Roland Garros 2005) – but before that he started at 41 ATP events.
The story of the young British woman therefore has even more astonishing parameters. She entered this year’s Wimbledon as world player number 338. Before coming to New York, she was still only in the middle of the second hundred (150th) and so she had to go to the three-round qualification.
She hasn’t had mercy on anyone since. She won ten matches on green concrete without losing the set. Without hesitation. As a great champion. The first in history, because tennis does not remember the grand slam winner, who made it to the main competition from the qualification,.
Raducanu and Fernandez seemed to turn the tennis world upside down. While 34-year-old Novak Djokovic confirmed the endless mental resilience among men in New York, among women they were still only girls. Finally, when the British sat down among the young ball collectors after the ceremony, she looked like one of them.
Photo: SITA / AP, Elise Amendola
Emma Raducanu Emma Raducanu, New York champion.
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Greetings from Elizabeth
The daughter of a Romanian father and a Chinese mother, she is the youngest winner since Wimbledon in 2004, where 17-year-old Maria Sharapova triumphed. However, these were the times when teenagers were a kind of custom in the finals of big tournaments.
This year’s finalists are skillfully 37 years old, three less than Serena Williams, who will complete a round 40 at the end of the month. The women’s final was played exactly twenty years after the fall of the twins in New York. Neither Raducanu nor Fernandez were born yet at the time. Their joint renking before the start of the US Open was 223, and if you wanted to bet that the two players will compete against each other in the final, you would leave with a long nose.
Bookmakers did not anticipate such an opportunity either…
The British went overseas this year as a relatively unknown player, but will return home as a star. Even the famous Gary Lineker, a former football representative, asked on Twitter to manage the duel in two sets. He just wanted someone watching his 4th round of the Premier League for BBC Sport.
“For the first time in my life, I’m writing status during a live broadcast. Oh, my God, that’s a performance, “he excited. A few minutes after the match, a greeting from Queen Elizabeth II arrived in New York. “What happened? What a performance… And that smile… Please keep both, “Daniela Hantuchová also floated in the Channel 4 studio.
Photo: SITA / AP, Elise Amendola
Emma Raducanu Emma Raducanu, winner of the US Open 2021.
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Unit of mathematics
Do you know what is most beautiful about Raducanu’s story? A few months ago, she still strictly divided life between tennis and school. She had to, because her parents wanted to. Even this season she brought home a math unit. Her story is different, she has never improved 100% in one of the famous tennis academies.
“It simply came to our notice then. When I was preparing things for the Wimbledon bubble, my parents asked me if I happened to be packing unnecessarily much clothes. In any case, now I will have to jump into the laundry room, “she laughed during the legendary grass tournament.
She started playing tennis when she was five years old. Although she had support from her parents, she did not receive any know-how from them. They never played him. Maybe just inspiration. In the players that represented the lands of her ancestors. After her father in Romania, Virginia Ruzici or Simona Halep, or after her mother in China, Na Li.
“When I was in China, I found my family to be incredibly resilient. As if nothing could break her. I have a lot of inspiration in it. My mother had to work extremely hard in the past, “said the sympathetic teenager. She also visited her birthplace Shenyang a few times in the northeast of the country. And she trained in a professional table tennis club there.
“When my players were tired, she didn’t stop. It’s a sporting talent, her tennis moves were unmissable during ping-pong, “her coach there smiled for The Times the day before the finals.