By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday July 5, 2024
For the first time since 2021, Emma Raducanu has powered into the second week at a major.
Photo Source: Rob Newell/ Camera Sport
The resounding roars emanating from the bowels of Centre Court were more than enough to tell you how the match was going.
Yes, 135-ranked Emma Raducanu is Great Britain’s great hope once again, and she is feeding the fire fabulously this week in London, tearing through three rounds without dropping a single set.
Some may have written her off as a flash in the pan, a one-Slam wonder who took the tennis world by storm while on a heater for the ages in 2021, reaching the second week at Wimbledon on her Grand Slam debut then winning the US Open on her main draw debut – from qualifying.
Injuries, pressure and doubts have taken their tool on Raducanu in the years that have intervened, but that glossy smile and that devil-may-care attitude is back, as is the polished, commanding tennis. Ranked 135 after a 2023 that featured not one, not two, but three different surgeries, Raducanu is proving that she’s no flash in the pan at Wimbledon this year.
And she may have room to run.
After her 6-2, 6-3 victory over Maria Sakkari, Raducanu will face New Zealand’s Lulu Sun, the World No.123.
If she can manage a win there, she’ll face either Paula Badosa, Donna Vekic, or Dayana Yastremska.
It’s not hard to imagine her reaching the semis, or even further, especially if she continues to play the loose, domineering tennis that she has produced through three rounds at SW19.
There is still much to prove for the 21-year-old, but it’s easy to see that after a tumultuous patch that saw her fail to reach beyond the second round in her last six Grand Slams, Emma Raducanu is in the zone once again.
Time is still on her side, and so is talent.
Get ready for a wild ride at Wimbledon.