Emma Raducanu pleasantly surprised everyone, including herself, yesterday (January 18th, 2022) when she won her first-round tie at the Australian Open.
The British sensation beat her opponent Sloane Stephens 6-0, 2-6, 6-1 in what was her 11th win in her past 12 Grand Slam matches – beyond impressive for a 19-year-old.
And Stephens isn’t just a minnow in the game; just like Raducanu did last year, the American won the US Open just five years ago in 2017 – when the girl from Bromley was just a 14-year-old schoolgirl about to embark on her GCSEs.
A lot has happened in the last six months for Raducanu, let alone the past five years.
Once unknown to anyone apart from her friends and family, now she’s been catapulted into the spotlight and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single person who didn’t recognise her walking down the street - but that change has only been fairly recent which some people lose perspective of.
Going into this opening round match, a lot of doubt and pressure was heaped upon the British No 1 as she failed to perform at the Sydney Tennis Classic warm-up event where she crashed out after being beaten by Elena Rybakina in the first tie, which led to questions about whether she would have a nightmare Open 'Down Under'.
If any of these doubts were still lingering yesterday, they were surely erased when she won her first-ever deciding set in a Grand Slam match to progress to the second round - but even Raducanu was shocked at her own performance.
“If you would have asked me a week ago after Sydney if I could turn it around this quickly, I would have been surprised, pleasantly,” the world No 18 revealed.
“I definitely am very proud of myself, how far I’ve come over the last few weeks and just having that positive attitude after getting one game on the scoreboard last week, to not let that defeat me and actually just keep working and chipping away, I was rewarded for it.”
Due to her youth and inexperience, Raducanu is going to be doubted at every turn, but it shouldn’t be like that.
At just a young age Raducanu is already a role model that many children are aspiring to and not being perfect and her inability to win every single match is a positive thing to be teaching the new generation.
Some are quick to disregard and judge the 19-year-old when she loses a game, but that implies the expectation put on her is perfection, which is impossible to attain.
In a world where mental health is becoming a bigger and bigger conversation, perfection shouldn’t be idealised as that would put a mental strain on anyone, let alone a young girl who is now globally recognised.
One week she lost a match, the next she’s through to the second round of the Australian Open – perfection really isn’t needed.
The doubters will continue to doubt, but I doubt Raducanu is listening, she’s too busy riding the wave of the Australian Open.
Raducanu next faces Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic on Thursday in their second-round tie.
RELATED: Emma Raducanu's loss doesn't mean her 2022 journey is over
Words by Lucy Roberts for Female First, who you can follow on Twitter, @Lucy_Roberts_72.
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