The Israeli match that set Raducanu up for stardom
SHE’S THE British teenager who’s suddenly become a global superstar after her triumph at the US Open just days ago.
But it was amid sweltering heat in Israel that Emma Raducanu originally revealed her precocious brilliance to the tennis world as she claimed her first senior title back in 2018.
Just 15 years old, her path to the final of the tournament in Tiberias saw Raducanu entirely unfazed by the occasion as she imposed herself on her opponents with now familiar cool professionalism.
Despite temperatures rising to 45C (113F) as the sun blazed down on the court at the Sea of Galilee Open, the then British junior No1 who had still yet to take her GCSEs brushed aside far more experienced players.
Going through the first and second rounds, the quarter and semi finals and the final itself, she won every match without dropping a set – just as she did in New York last Saturday.
Afterwards she posed for the camera with the same nonchalant smile that has so delighted fans in Britain and around the world over the past week.
That remarkable achievement in Israel – she was the youngest player that year to reach a final of an International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament – immediately marked Raducanu out as a star to watch.
Days after her win at the $15,000 event in Tiberias she appeared in the world rankings for the first time at No 885. That was just the start of an upward trajectory in a career which is now rapidly rewriting tennis history.