Former British number 1 Tim Henman revealed that the first thing that struck him about Emma Raducanu was the intensity with which the rising British tennis star practiced. During the 2021 US Open, Henman was interested in seeing what Raducanu looked like on a practice court.
Henman was amazed after seeing the intensity with which the 19-year-old practiced. «Between qualifying and her first match, I watched Emma practice with Andrew on the court. She was interested to see how Andrew was doing and what kind of exercises they were doing.»
I think the only thing that really impressed me about both of them was the intensity. This was really quality practice. There was no wasting time and Andrew was very specific in the exercises that he felt Emma should be doing.
And Emma was obviously buying into that, so there was an intensity for someone so young and inexperienced, that was very impressive,» Henman said in a video for the Amazon Prime Video Sport YouTube channel, according to Sportskeeda.
Raducanu ended up winning the US Open
Raducanu made tennis history when she became the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title. During last year’s US Open, Raducanu was ranked No. 150 in the world as she didn’t even come close to making the main draw cut for the final Grand Slam tournament of the season.
However, Raducanu entered the qualifying event, where he won three matches in straight sets to earn a place in the main draw. After successfully making it through the qualifying event, Raducanu won seven main draw matches, all in straight sets, to astonishingly lift her first Grand Slam title as a qualifier, at the age of 18.
This year, Raducanu did not have much success at Flushing Meadows. In her tournament debut, Raducanu suffered a first round loss to France’s Alize Cornet.
