Djokovic missed out on the calendar slam at the final hurdle but declared himself ‘the happiest man alive’ after his defeatSomething was wrong. The machine was malfunctioning. The power was blinking on and off. Routine backhands were dropping into the net. Forehands were flying long. On Amazon, which was hosting UK television coverage of the US Open men’s final, users were already beginning to voice their disapproval in the reviews. “Awful quality,” noted one. “Glitches throughout, not good enough service.” “Very disappointing quality coverage.” They weren’t talking about Novak Djokovic, but they might as well have been.Of course, over the years we have all glimpsed Djokovic in various states of disrepair, and most of the time we think we know...
The country’s lack of major tennis champions is likely to increase media coverage and the burden of expectationI was first really impressed by Emma Raducanu at Wimbledon in the round of 32 when she beat Sorana Cirstea. I was commentating on that match and she was very positive, she embraced the crowd on Court One. I looked at her as a rising prospect right then. Rising prospects, do they actually win majors? Right now in women’s tennis they do.When you see the way Emma played her matches in New York, especially in the second week, she played at that level. She played at the level of a major champion right now in women’s tennis. What has shifted is that all...
Teenager’s victory came out of nowhere so it needs perspective – we cannot expect her to keep doing this in majorsSo: that happened. As Emma Raducanu emerged from Arthur Ashe Stadium clutching the US Open trophy to her chest, the blood on her knee still visible from where she had fallen, it was possible to feel a little dazed, a little concussed, to feel the edges of the night dissolving a little. In this new unreality an 18-year-old qualifier from Bromley is tennis’s newest star, a figure of adulation and idolisation well beyond the wet island for whom she has just claimed a first grand slam women’s title in 44 years.You could lose yourself in the records and the milestones:...
The 18-year-old showed tremendous composure from the start in her sensational straight sets victory to win the US OpenEmma Raducanu walked on to court for her first grand slam final with a smile, responded to the roar of the crowd with a gentle wave of her left hand, ready to go. If she was going to go down, she would go down on her terms.We need not have worried. In the most intense of arenas, in uncharted territory, the 18-year-old won her first grand slam title and the greatest thing about it all was that from the first moment to last, with only one or two moments of mild doubt, it almost seemed inevitable. Continue reading...
Bromley teenager was meant to have met her match in Belinda Bencic but she dismantled the Swiss in a masterclassLess than 10 minutes after Emma Raducanu emerged from the tunnel into Arthur Ashe Stadium for the biggest match of her life against the highest-calibre opponent she’d ever faced, the emerging British star was promptly broken in her opening service game.This is where the fairytale was meant to end: opposite the in-form Belinda Bencic, the newly minted Olympic gold medallist who had lost just once in her last 14 matches, whose class and experience would surely be too much for a teenager ranked 150th in the world. Continue reading...