Meet the 18-year-old Emma Raducanu, the 1st British Woman to win a Grand Slam Title Since ‘77.
Britain’s 44-year long wait to bring a Grand Slam title home came to an end when Emma Raducanu won the US Open. Here’s all you need to know about her.
Winning a Grand Slam title is an achievement every tennis player looks forward to in their career. The title is won in four major tennis tournaments that happen across the world. It includes Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open. The title adds the athletes to the list of the best, and a recent addition to it was Britain’s Emma Raducanu. On the historic day of September 13, Raducanu made her way to winning the US Open held in New York. Her performance has the spectators biting their nails at the Arthur Ashe Stadium as she beat her Canadian competitor, Leylah Fernandez, with a 6–4, 6–3 score in the final round.
(Photo: Reuters)
“It’s an absolute dream. I’ve always dreamed of winning a Grand Slam. You just say these things. You say, ‘I want to win a Grand Slam.’ But to have the belief I did, and actually executing, winning a Grand Slam, I can’t believe it,” she said, as reported by the NPR.
With her win, she became the first British woman to win the Grand Slam title after Virginia Wade at Wimbledon in the summer of 1977. Britain’s wait for the title finally came to an end after 44 long years. She received a congratulatory note from Queen Elizabeth II for her incredible performance on the court. She is also the first youngest teenager since Maria Sharapova (17) won Wimbledon in 2004.
(Photo: WTA/Jimmie48)
Prior to US Open, Emma only had one grand slam appearance in her account with 150th ranking in the sport, and now she is placed in the 22nd spot. She started her professional journey as a tennis player in 2018 at the Wimbledon Junior competition where she made it in the quarterfinals. She made her Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) main-draw debut last month in Viking Open Nottingham. Her career has been shorter but impressive.
Born in Toronto, Canada to a Chinese mother and Romanian father, Raducanu moved to England when she was two. Her parents taught her the importance of discipline, and she feels that it has really helped her. “I think having parents as I do, they always push me. They have high expectations. I’ve always tried to live up to that. And I hope I did them proud this week,” she said, according to the South China Morning Post.
(Photograph: Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports)
Although she has dual citizenship, British and Canadian but she has always represented Britain in the court. She had a difficult 18 months due to the pandemic and her parents’ insistence on finishing her high school degree. “My dad is definitely very tough to please. But I managed to today,” she said after registering her first-ever grand slam win. She considers tennis players Simona Halep and Li Na as her role models, and they belong to the countries of her ancestry.
Emma not only made her country proud, but is an inspiration to all the budding tennis players from all over the world. Winning a title at such a young age, she made it clear that it’s only the hard work that matters in the end.
Meanwhile, in India, the government has finally allowed women to enter the National Defence Academy (NDA). Read this blog to know more about the decision. You can also check our other blogs on the website.
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Image credits: Google