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Teen finalists signal bright future
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With Serena Williams pulling out due to fitness issues even before a ball had been hit and Naomi Osaka and Ashleigh Barty dispatched in the third round, a loss of interest in the women’s singles draw at this year’s US Open was palpable.
But no one could have predicted that it would be left to two teenagers — ranked 150th and 73rd in the world — to create the kind of frenzied hype in women’s tennis as seen over the past fortnight with their fascinating journeys to Saturday’s final.
Britain’s Emma Raducanu and Canadian Leylah Fernandez — born two months apart in 2002 — took the US Open by storm with their youthful exuberance and fearless style of play.
The appreciation of fans across the globe was reflected in the mood of the 23,000-strong crowd during Saturday’s title clash in the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I have never heard a crowd in Grand Slam tennis being this loud, this appreciative of the players and the player responding,” said Mats Wilander, a seven-time major champion and Eurosport tennis expert.
While 18-year-old Raducanu bagged the ultimate prize — winning 6-4, 6-3 — to become the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title, women’s tennis was also a winner.
American Williams, who turns 40 this month, has been one of the biggest draws at Flushing Meadows for the last two decades and her withdrawal would have sent shivers down the spines of organizers hoping to bask in the glory of having full capacity crowd at a major for the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak.
When Fernandez beat two-time US Open winner Osaka in the third round, the mood further dampened as the Japanese player, who has been struggling with mental health issues, left the hardcourt major saying she was unsure when she will compete again.
The following day world No. 1 Barty, who won the Wimbledon title in July, was also ousted.
With Novak Djokovic staying on track to become the first man in 52 years to claim all four major titles in a calendar year, the women’s competition in New York was in danger of turning into an undercard during the second week of the Grand Slam.
But Raducanu and Fernandez ensured it did not, keeping the global audience captivated with their scintillating runs from relative obscurity.
Eleven weeks ago, the ever-smiling Raducanu had just completed school when she made her Grand Slam debut at Wimbledon as a 338th-ranked wildcard. The US Open was only her fourth tour-level tournament.
Fernandez played in the main draw at majors for the first time last year and was ranked 73rd at the start of the US Open.
But what would have seemed like an outrageous title clash became a reality when Saturday’s final featured two unseeded players for the first time at a major in the Open Era.
While men’s tennis has crowned only one new major winner outside the trio of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic in the last five years, there have been 14 different major champions in women’s tennis since the start of the 2017 season. This depth and unpredictability has been a cause for celebration.
Bianca Andreescu and Iga Swiatek were both 19 when they won the 2019 US Open and 2020 French Open, respectively, while Osaka and Sofia Kenin have also been among the young women’s champions on the biggest stage in recent years.
Add in 17-year-old American Coco Gauff, who has already registered some stunning wins in her fledgling career, to the mix and women’s tennis is looking at an exciting future.
“Emma and Leylah represent two of the WTA Tour’s very talented group of young prospects and are leading what is sure to be an incredible era of WTA Tennis,” WTA chairman and CEO Steve Simon said a few hours before Saturday’s final.
While pundits are cautious about the prospect of either Raducanu or Fernandez dominating the sport like Williams did after winning her maiden slam in New York in 1999, the duo have already established their star power and can expect sponsors and brands queuing up.
Data and analytics company GlobalData predicted Raducanu could earn millions after becoming the first British woman to win a major since Virginia Wade’s Wimbledon triumph in 1977.
Their global profile should also be a major draw and prepare fertile ground for new interest and fans for the WTA.
Jorge Fernandez, the father of the 19-year-old Canadian, is from Ecuador while Raducanu’s is from Romania.
Raducanu’s mother is from China while Fernandez’s has Filipino origin.
The British player could potentially tap into the massive market in China the same way Osaka did in her native Japan.
Her recent comments about looking up to China’s two-time major winner Li Na while growing up and her message in Mandarin after Saturday’s win would surely endear her more to fans in the Asian country.
In fact, Tencent published an article with pictures of Raducanu visiting China as a child. “An ethnic Chinese won the US Open” it trumpeted. “She claimed that her motivation (or power) comes from her Chinese mother!”
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