’No one knew her’: Emma Raducanu, youthful freedom and US Open glory

An hour into Emma Raducanu’s startling third-round match at the US Open last year, she still, somehow, had not lost a single game. In the second grand slam event of her career, the 18-year-old had lined up against the eternally steady Sara Sorribes Tormo, a match-up that seemed destined to push Raducanu to her limits. Instead, the youngster tore her apart. Raducanu led 6-0, 5-0 with a match point on her opponent’s serve, then a game later, served out the win over her top 50-ranked opponent. With it, the idea of what she could really achieve in the following days began to shift.

“It was at that point I thought: ‘Whoa, hang on a minute,’” says Katie O’Brien, a former British No 1. “If you maintain this level she could be a real contender. I think we were all saying it a bit tongue-in-cheek. I’m not quite sure there was any substance behind those words.”

Back then, even a mere fourth-round run seemed an unreal prospect. A few months earlier, Raducanu was inactive, her tennis on pause before her A-levels. Her breakthrough at Wimbledon was on home soil, a world away from the grind of the tour. The North American hard-court swing marked a first extended sally abroad and she had arrived in New York exhausted after a run to the final of a lower-level event in Chicago the previous Sunday. Simply getting out of the three qualifying rounds would have represented a successful tournament.

“I’m sure she was pretty happy just to have qualified last year,” says O’Brien. “Maybe there was more pressure, you could argue, in the first round of qualifying. She just wanted to win a couple of matches. And then, once she got into the main draw she was like: ‘Oh wow, I’m here now. Let’s just play.’”

Iain Bates, the LTA’s head of women’s tennis,