TEEN TITAN brian.lewis@nypost.com
Raducanu, 18, becomes first qualifier to reach Open semis
Emma Raducanu came into the U.S. Open as a littleknown teenager, needing to grind through qualifiers just to get into the main draw. Two weeks later, she’s a revelation who’s made the semifinals — and history.
The 18-year-old Brit still hasn’t dropped a single set in the U.S. Open, much less a match. And Wednesday she became the first qualifier in the professional era to reach the final four in Flushing Meadows, her 6-3, 6-4 win turning Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic into little more than a speed bump on her way to the semifinals.
“I’ve actually got no idea about any of the records at all. It’s the first time I heard I was the first qualifier to make the semis. I had no idea,” Raducanu said. “I’m not here to chase any records right now. I’m just taking care of what I can do.”
Raducanu might be unimpressive, but her rise is impressive.
She had gone 18 months without competitive tennis entering this year’s Wimbledon tuneup in early June, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and her parents’ edict that finishing school came first. So after acing her A-level exams (that’s high school finals, to the uninitiated), she got a wild-card invite to Wimbledon ranked No. 338.
Wednesday she played her way into the semifinals versus Maria Sakkari — now only the fourth woman to reach any major semi as a qualifier.
And she’s done it with an attractive all-around game, a calm that belies her youth and even a philosophical take on new expectations suddenly thrust upon her and fellow teen semifinalist Leylah Fernandez.
“To compare yourself and your results against anyone is probably like the thief of happiness,” Raducanu said. “I didn’t compete for 18 months, but here I am. It just shows that if you believe in yourself, then anything is possible.”
So far in Flushing, Raducanu has made the improbable look like a sure thing. She’s swept 16 sets in her eight matches. Granted, she didn’t face a single top-40 foe until Wednesday, when No. 11 Bencic was expected to provide a stiff test.
But against a foe who’d won 13 of her past 14 matches — and also not dropped a set at the U.S. Open — Raducanu aced that test like her A-levels. She broke Bencic once in the first set and twice more in the second, hitting 23 winners to just a dozen unforced errors.
“Obviously she played great, she totally deserved to win,” Bencic said. “I just wish I could’ve made it a little harder and played better.”
The hard-hitting Bencic broke Raducanu in the first game, and jumped ahead 3-1.
But after making seven unforced errors in the first six games, Raducanu had none the rest of the first set. The teen reeled off five straight games to take the set.
After Bencic had been broken just three times at the Open, Raducanu matched that total. And when she fell behind love-30 in her last two service games, she fought back to take both.
“When you’re serving out a match on such a big stage, to go into your first semifinals of a Slam, you definitely need a sense of calm,” said Raducanu, who showed just that.
Brimming with confidence, her stellar serve out wide gave her match point, and she closed it out.
Raducanu dropped her racket, put her hands on her yellow Nike visor in disbelief and waved to the adoring crowd that she had long since won over. And with her charisma and game, she’s poised to become one of the game’s next huge stars.
“It’s great for tennis,” Bencic said. “I just really hope everyone will protect them and hope the best for them, and not try to destroy, put so much pressure and so much hype around them so it just gets too much. I just hope everyone will stay and really hope the best for them so they can just develop in peace.”