Emma Raducanu emerges as a big Wimbledon winner despite imminent rankings slide
The Centre Court scoreboard may have suggested otherwise, but Emma Raducanu left the greatest stage in tennis as a winner as her Wimbledon dream died for another year.
The 7-6(6), 6-4 defeat against world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka will sting for the soon-to-be British No 3, but this was a win for Raducanu in so many ways.
Her recent clashes against the giants of the women’s game have been mismatches that suggested the 2021 US Open champion would never scale the heights and win a second major title.
Yet this closely contested battle against the powerful Sabalenka was evidence that Raducanu can compete with the very best and that will be the biggest victory she claims from this epic night under the Centre Court roof.
She went a long way to silencing the snipers who seem to have made it their duty to tear down this inspirational young female athlete.
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The British sporting public have not always taken Raducanu to their hearts, with the perception that she is more about the brand than the sport often aired.
Many who only loosely follow tennis had a negative view of Raducanu, with the succession of defeats and injuries that followed her miracle in New York appearing to give curious satisfaction to her detractors.
The lukewarm reception Raducanu has received in many of her matches at Wimbledon highlighted that aura of negativity, yet this night under the Centre Court roof felt a little different.
Against world No 1 Sabalenka, who is the strong favourite to win the Wimbledon title for the first time in her career, Raducanu had overwhelming support from a home crowd who had their cheers amplified thanks to an impressive performance from the Brit.
Raducanu has been blown away by players of Sabalenka’s status over the last year, but an early break of the Belarusian’s serve gave the home crowd a reason to believe and by the end of the set, Centre Court was a cacophony of noise.
Sabalenka had seven set points at 5-4, but she failed to convert and was broken in her next game, with the home fans now starting to touch levels of noise that would not have looked out of place at the Oasis comeback gig taking place at the same time in Cardiff.
Raducanu served for the set at 6-5 and even though she was knocked onto the ropes by Sabalenka and forced into a tie-break, she was staying with the best player in the world and even had a set-point at 6-5 in the breaker.
This was the best set of tennis Raducanu has played against a top ranked opponent since her US Open triumph almost four years ago, but she blinked when she had a chance to attack the second serve of Sabalenka on set-point and her chance was gone as the best player in women’s tennis converted her eighth set point after one of the best sets of women’s tennis seen on Centre Court in a long time.
Sabalenka would then have been expected to run away with the second set and clinch the match, but Raducanu showed commendable spirit to surge ahead and as she reached 40-15 on her own serve at 4-2, she was in touching distance of winning a set once again.
Yet she failed to convert and didn’t win another game as Sabalenka turned on the power to push over the winning line.
The roar that greeted Raducanu’s exit from the court confirmed she had won a renewed mandate from the British public and when she looks back at the way she battled, the chances she spurned and the quality she showed in a contest that lasted precisely two hours, she has to take encourgament for what comes next.
Raducanu played top 10 tennis for all but the final 10 minutes of this compelling contest and that should fuel her confidence that one day, Wimbledon’s Centre Court could provide her with a second Grand Slam title triumph.
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