Emma Raducanu ( ; born 13 November 2002) is a British professional tennis player. She reached a career-high ranking of No. 10 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on 11 July 2022, and is a former British No. 1. Raducanu is the first British woman to win a Grand Slam singles title since Virginia Wade at the 1977 Wimbledon Championships.
Raducanu was born in Toronto and raised in London. She made her WTA Tour debut in June 2021. With a wildcard entry at Wimbledon, ranked outside the top 300, she reached the fourth round in her first major tournament. At the 2021 US Open, Raducanu became the first qualifier in the Open Era to win a major singles title, beating Leylah Fernandez in the final without dropping a set during the tournament. It was the second major tournament of her career, and she holds the Open Era record for the fewest majors played before winning a title.
Personal life and education
Emma Raducanu ( ;) was born on 13 November 2002, in Toronto, Canada, and was raised in Bromley, England. Her father, Ion Răducanu (), is from Bucharest, Romania, and her mother, Renee Zhai (Dongmei), is from Shenyang, China. She has said that her parents "both came from very academic families... [in] communist countries so education was kind of their only option". Both of her parents work in the finance sector.
Her family moved to England when she was two years old, and she holds both British and Canadian citizenship. She is fluent in Mandarin and almost fluent in Romanian.
Raducanu started playing tennis at the age of five, while also participating in various other sports and activities as a child, such as basketball, golf, karting, motocross, skiing, horse riding, and ballet. Raducanu is a fan of Formula One and the football club Tottenham Hotspur.
She attended Bickley Primary School, followed by Newstead Wood School, a selective grammar school in Orpington, where she obtained an A* in mathematics and an A in economics in her A-Levels. Raducanu has stated she would like to become as athletic as Simona Halep, and aspires to the mentality and sporting ethics of Li Na.
On 28 January 2022, a man named Amrit Magar was found guilty of stalking Raducanu at her home. Raducanu said that the incidents made her feel unsafe in her house and concerned to go out alone. On 23 February 2022, the offender was sentenced to a community order, and was also given a five-year restraining order imposing conditions.
Junior career
Raducanu made her International Tennis Federation (ITF) debut in Liverpool at the Nike Junior International (Grade-5 event) after having entered on her 13th birthday, the earliest allowed age of entry. She subsequently won the tournament eight days later and became the youngest ever winner of an ITF Under-18 tournament. Her ITF junior success continued in 2017 with two titles in February at the Yonex ITF Hamburg and ITF Oslo Open Grade-4 events.
Raducanu won the ITF Chandigarh Lawn Tennis girls' tournament in January 2018. In 2018, she won ITF Grade-3 at Chandigarh and Grade-2 junior tournaments at New Delhi, both in India. Raducanu defeated Diana Khodan of Ukraine in the final at Chandigarh, held at the Lawn Tennis Association Stadium, where she won in straight sets. She won two additional titles the following month, four in total for 2018 and seven over the course of her junior career, with wins at the Biotehnos Cup and Šiauliai Open Grade-2 events.
Later that year, she reached the girls' singles quarterfinals at both the Wimbledon Championships and the US Open. At Wimbledon, Raducanu defeated Leylah Fernandez in the second round, a victory she would repeat in the (senior) US Open final three years later.
Raducanu turned professional in 2018. She alternated between junior and professional tournaments during 2018 and 2019.
Professional career
2018–2020: ITF Circuit and Fed Cup
Raducanu made her debut on the ITF Women's circuit in 2018 and secured her first title of the year in May at the $15,000 ITF Tiberias. She finished the season with a second $15,000 title in October at the ITF Antalya.
