Emma Raducanu

Emma Raducanu (born 13 November 2002) is a British professional tennis player. She has reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 10 by the WTA. Raducanu was the 2021 US Open champion, and she was the first British woman to win a major in singles since Virginia Wade at the 1977 Wimbledon Championships. She is currently the British No. 1 in women's singles.

With a wildcard entry at 2021 Wimbledon, ranked outside the world's top 300, she reached the fourth round at her first major tournament. At the 2021 US Open, she became the first qualifier in the Open era to win a singles major title, beating Leylah Fernandez in the final without dropping a set during the tournament. It was the second Grand Slam tournament of her career, and she holds the Open-era record for the fewest majors played before winning a title.

Early life and education

Emma Raducanu was born on 13 November 2002, in Toronto, Canada, and was raised in Bromley, England. Her father, Ion Răducanu, is from Bucharest, Romania, and her mother, Renee Zhai (Dongmei), is from Shenyang, China. Both of her parents work in the finance sector.

Her family moved to England when she was two years old, and she holds both British and Canadian citizenship. She is fluent in English, Mandarin and Romanian.

Raducanu started playing tennis at the age of five, while also participating in various other sports and activities as a child, such as basketball, golf, karting, motocross, skiing, horse riding, and ballet.

She attended Bickley Primary School, followed by Newstead Wood School, a selective grammar school in Orpington, where she obtained an A* in mathematics and an A in economics in her A-Levels.

Career

Juniors

Raducanu made her ITF Junior Circuit debut in Liverpool at the Nike Junior International (Grade-5 event), after having entered on her 13th birthday, the earliest allowed age of entry. She subsequently won the tournament eight days later and became the youngest-ever winner of an ITF under-18 tournament. Her junior success continued in 2017 with two titles in February at the Yonex ITF Hamburg and ITF Oslo Open Grade-4 events.

Raducanu won the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis girls' ITF tournament in January 2018. In 2018, she won Grade-3 at Chandigarh and Grade-2 junior tournaments at New Delhi, both in India. Raducanu defeated Diana Khodan of Ukraine in the final at Chandigarh, held at the Lawn Tennis Association Stadium, where she won in straight sets. She won two additional titles the following month, four in total for 2018 and seven over the course of her junior career, with wins at the Biotehnos Cup and Šiauliai Open Grade-2 events.

Later that year, she reached the girls' singles quarterfinals at both the Wimbledon Championships and the US Open. At Wimbledon, Raducanu defeated Leylah Fernandez in the second round, a victory she would repeat in the (senior) US Open final three years later.

2018–2020: Professional debut and BJK Cup

Raducanu turned professional in 2018. She alternated between junior and professional tournaments during 2018 and 2019.

She made her debut on the ITF Women's Circuit in 2018 and secured her first title of the year in May at the 15k event in Tiberias. She finished the season with a second 15k title in October at Antalya.

In 2019, Raducanu competed in Maharashtra, India. She retired in the second round of the 25k Solapur Open. She won a 25k event in Pune in December; in the final at Deccan Gymkhana Ground, she won against Naiktha Bains in three sets. Her semifinal and quarterfinal victories came in three sets. In Fed Cup (eventually Billie Jean King Cup), she was a hitting partner for the British team in 2019. She was then selected to play for the team in the 2020 qualifying, after Johanna Konta withdrew to focus on the Olympics. At the time, Raducanu was described as "the British player with the most potential of her generation". She would have partnered Bains in the doubles qualifiers against Slovakia, but the match was not played. Asked about being called up to the British team as a teenager, Raducanu said, "Being a bit of the underdog is great because you can go out there with no fear."

In 2020, many tennis events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Raducanu participated in exhibition matches and small tournaments in the United Kingdom. She won the Lawn Tennis Association LTA British Tour Masters title in December 2020. She also devoted time to her academic studies, preparing for her A-Level examinations, which she took in 2021.

2021: US Open title and top 20

Raducanu began training with coach Nigel Sears at the end of April 2021. At the beginning of June, Raducanu made her WTA Tour main-draw debut at the Nottingham Open as a wildcard entry. She lost in the first round to Briton Harriet Dart.

In late June, Raducanu made her major main-draw debut on a wildcard to the Wimbledon Championships. She advanced to the third round with initial victories over Vitalia Diatchenko and Markéta Vondroušová. She was the youngest British woman to reach the Wimbledon third round since Elena Baltacha in 2002. She then defeated Sorana Cîrstea to reach the fourth round, becoming the youngest British woman to reach the last 16 in the Open era, as well as entering into the top 200. Raducanu retired in the second set of her fourth-round match against Ajla Tomljanović, after experiencing breathing difficulties and sickness.

In July, Raducanu changed her coach from Sears to Andrew Richardson, one of her youth coaches. Richardson was chosen to coach Raducanu through the US Open Series. Raducanu then played at the Silicon Valley Classic, the first women's tournament in the annual US Open Series, in August after again receiving a wildcard to enter the tournament; she lost in the first round to Zhang Shuai. She reached the final of the WTA 125 event in Chicago, where she lost to Clara Tauson. The WTA ranking points she gained brought her to a new career-high ranking of world No. 150.

At the US Open, Raducanu entered the main draw as a qualifier. Ranked 150th in the world, she had to play three matches in the qualifying tournament to get into the main draw. In the main draw, she defeated Stefanie Vögele, Zhang Shuai, Sara Sorribes Tormo, Shelby Rogers, Belinda Bencic, Maria Sakkari, and Leylah Fernandez to win the US Open. On her way to the title she advanced to the semifinals without dropping a set, and became the fifth player in the Open era to reach a major semifinal as a qualifier. In progressing to the final of the US Open, Raducanu entered the top 25 and became the British No. 1. She became the fifth player in the Open Era to make the semifinal on her US Open debut, and the first British woman to reach the US Open final since Virginia Wade in 1968. Raducanu defeated Leylah Fernandez in two sets, winning with a 109-mph ace, in what was the first all-teenage women's singles final since the 1999 US Open. She won the title without dropping a set, the first woman to do so at the US Open since Williams in 2014. Raducanu was the first qualifier (male or female) to win a Grand Slam tournament in the Open Era. As a result of her US Open victory, Raducanu rose to No. 23 in the rankings, a jump of 332 places from the start of the year. Raducanu received congratulatory messages from a number of notable figures, including Elizabeth II and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

Less than two weeks after her victory at the US Open, Raducanu chose not to extend her coaching arrangement with Richardson. She entered the Indian Wells Open in October 2021, accepting a wildcard place in the main draw. Although she was without a coach, former British No. 1 Jeremy Bates aided her at the event. Raducanu lost in straight sets in her first match against Aliaksandra Sasnovich. After that, she withdrew from the Kremlin Cup, citing schedule changes.

Later in October, Raducanu entered the Transylvania Open, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, as the third seed. There, she earned her first WTA Tour victory by defeating Polona Hercog. She advanced to the quarterfinals by defeating Ana Bogdan, before losing to Marta Kostyuk in straight sets. Her last WTA Tour event of 2021 was the Linz Open, which she entered as the top seed for the first time. She lost in her round of 16 match against Wang Xinyu, in three sets. Shortly after the tournament, she announced she had hired a permanent coach, naming Torben Beltz to the position.

After finishing the 2021 WTA Tour at a career-high of world No. 19, Raducanu participated in an exhibition match against Elena-Gabriela Ruse at the Champions Tennis event in the Royal Albert Hall on 28 November 2021, and won in two sets. She was scheduled to play Bencic in another exhibition at the Mubadala Championship, before withdrawing after testing positive for COVID-19.