Raducanu still learning... so give her a break
NOBODy gets blisters from signing too many contracts. Equally, from wearing Tiffany jewellery. Unless it’s that knockoff stuff laid out on street corners. And even then, it’s more likely to turn your wrist green than cause lesions. So we can presume Emma Raducanu is working hard on retaining her US Open title. Very hard. And yet it’s not enough. For some people, it’s never enough. Whatever she says, whatever she does, the narrative stays the same. Flash-in-the-pan Emma got lucky and, since, has been more interested in clinching commercial endorsements than working on her game. No matter that the last year would probably have panned out just the same even if she had done nothing but play tennis and practise. No matter that the reason sponsors seek her out is that her first achievement in tennis was so spectacular it rendered most of her contemporaries redundant by comparison. So she hasn’t lived up to it? Who could? This time last year, Raducanu was coming off a US Open qualifying route that began with a practice session on a court outside the boundaries of the Flushing Meadows complex. P164, in a local park. Efforts to locate this yesterday proved fruitless. USTA officials doubted the existence of a P164. Raducanu was, quite literally, somebody from nowhere.
That she progressed through the qualifiers and then the tournament proper without dropping a set is uncharted territory and likely to remain so for some considerable time.
No qualifier has ever won a Grand Slam event. Raducanu had played just 86 professional matches arriving at the 2021 US Open. It was a feat that has left her with unimaginable expectations. How was she to match this?
As Judy Murray pointed out, if, after this US Open, Raducanu does slip back to somewhere between 60 and 80 in the world, she will still be ahead of the curve for a 19year-old playing her first full professional season. Equally, unlike any other player on the circuit, Raducanu has been working without an apprenticeship. Every athlete progresses through the ranks, no matter how gifted. Every athlete except Raducanu. Having won the US Open, she could hardly revert to Challenger level or the ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour to learn her trade. So there are gaps in that education. Gaps that, contrary to widespread misconceptions, are not being filled by contracts and photoshoots. It is deeply unhelpful when Forbes speculate — and it is speculation — that Raducanu earned £17.87million in the past year, because it makes it seem as if this is her priority, not the simple product of a sporting feat previously considered unachievable. So give her a break. Of course there is talent within. Of course, this strange, surreal year is not indicative of her talents. Context, context. An interviewer once told Joseph Heller he hadn’t written anything to match his first novel, Catch-22. Heller fixed him with a steely glare. ‘Who has?’ he said.