It is a feat that will mark a milestone in the history of world tennis. Britain’s Emma Raducanu, just 18, won the US Open, beating 19-year-old Canadian Leylah Fernandez in the final 6-4, 6-3, on Saturday September 11 in New York. She thus became the first player from qualifying to win a Grand Slam title and also the youngest since Russia’s Maria Sharapova who won Wimbledon at 17 in 2004.
A success all the more striking as Raducanu, 150e world, won everything in its path, leaving no crumbs to her opponents: she won all ten matches, qualifying included, by 20 sets to 0. The last to have achieved such a “perfect” at the US Open was Serena Williams in 2014. In front of her was Fernandez (73e), the other sensation of the New York fortnight, which, failing to have swept away its rivals, has managed to reverse very compromised situations, at the expense of yet seasoned opponents.
She had thus blocked the road of three of the five best players in the world: the Japanese Naomi Osaka (3e) last year’s winner, Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (5e) then the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (2e). But this time, she couldn’t do anything against Raducanu, whom she found for the first time in the pros, three years after her loss to the Briton in the second round of the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2018.
Under the eyes of Billie Jean King
The context was obviously quite different, at the heart of Arthur Ashe’s cauldron and its 23,000 electric fans, including Billie Jean King, one of the greatest champions of all time who must have enjoyed seeing the tennis of tomorrow come to light. under his eyes. Raducanu was, as expected, the most aggressive in this final, like this successful entry break, taking advantage of the feverishness in the service of his opponent who will continue to pay the dear price during this meeting.
Fernandez succeeded in breaking down because she knew how to compete in the exchange, showing that, failing to be so powerful, she was very good at counterattacking and imposing rallies. But after 58 hotly contested minutes, it was the Briton who again made the difference on opposing service, with a superb uncrossed forehand.
The Canadian, weighed down by a first ball barely exceeding 50% success and a second often punished by the returns of her opponent, again gave up her engagement twice in the second round which she had started well by breaking the first .
Breathtaking
After saving two match points at 5-2 on her serve, she fought like hell to delay the deadline, finally releasing her shots. On one of them offering him a bullet debreak, Raducanu grated his left knee on a slip, a tear of blood running down his leg.
After a medical time out, slightly contested by Fernandez aware that her momentum could be broken, the Romanian, after a difficult smash passed ric-rac, offered her third match point. The maid.
Raducanu collapsed with joy under the cheers. A star was born in Flushing Meadows that no one saw coming, except perhaps observers who remember that at Wimbledon this summer she hit the 8th final, then benefiting from an invitation. She then gave up, suffocated by the stake, victim of respiratory problems. This time, it was she who took the breath away around her.