Great Britain Nobody had a plan for Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open. She entered as a qualifier, ranked 150th in the world, having played exactly one previous Grand Slam (she retired from Wimbledon with breathing difficulties two months earlier). She was 18. She had no coach with her.
She won the whole thing without dropping a single set.
Ten matches, zero sets lost, qualifier to champion. It is the only time in the Open Era that a qualifier has won a Grand Slam singles title. The margin was not close. She beat Belinda Bencic, Maria Sakkari, and Belinda Bencic's friend and contemporary Karolina Pliskova โ then at the time the world No. 3 โ along the way. She did not seem nervous. She seemed like she was enjoying herself, which was the strangest part.
Who Is Emma Raducanu?
Born November 13, 2002, in Toronto, Canada, to a Romanian father and a Chinese mother, Emma grew up in Bromley, south London. She holds British nationality and plays under the British flag. At 175 cm (5'9"), she is not the biggest player on tour, but her movement is exceptional โ fast, low to the ground, able to recover from positions that would end a rally for most players.
She plays an aggressive baseline game. Her backhand is particularly clean, a two-hander that she hits through the ball rather than around it. When she is striking the ball well, she can match pace with the best players in the world. The 2021 US Open was 18 days of that, uninterrupted.
The Hard Part
What happened after the US Open is a story that tennis has told before: the sudden arrival of enormous expectation, the struggle to maintain it. Raducanu's ranking jumped from 150 to 23 overnight. She won exactly one Grand Slam defense period. Injuries, coaching changes (she has had more coaches than most players have in a decade), and the weight of a nation's hopes made the next two years difficult.
Her career record stands at 58โ43. She has one WTA title โ that US Open. But to reduce her story to "one-hit wonder" is to misread what happened and what she is.
The Physical Reality
Raducanu has had significant injury problems โ wrist, ankle, back. In 2023 she had surgery on both wrists and one ankle in the same year, which is an almost unimaginable physical setback. She came back. She is competing on tour. She is in her early 20s.
Prize money has crossed $7.5 million, the vast majority of it from a single tournament. But her earnings off the court โ sponsorships with Nike, Porsche, Dior, Evian โ are substantially higher. She became a commercial phenomenon in Britain in a way that tennis players simply do not, usually.
Why She Is Worth Watching
The 2021 US Open proved something rare: that Raducanu, under the right conditions, with a free mind and no pressure, can play tennis at a level that beats the best in the world without dropping a set over ten matches. That is not luck. That is talent that most players never touch.
Whether injuries and expectations allow her to access that level again consistently โ that is the question. She is 22 years old. The answer is not written yet.