18-year-old Emma Raducanu has defeated Leylah Fernandez to win the 2021 US Open.
Gatekeepers News reports that Raducanu has beaten 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez to be the youngest Grand Slam champion since Maria Sharapova won 2004 Wimbledon at age 17.
The British teenager who made her tour-level main-draw debut in Nottingham just three months ago was crowned the US Open champion on Sunday.
She defeated Fernandez of Canada 6-4, 6-3 in an all-teenage US Open final to win her first Grand Slam title and her first tour-level title overall.
Raducanu who also had a perfect three weeks in New York made it through three rounds of qualifying without the loss of a set. Similarly, in her US Open main-draw debut, where she also did not drop a set in seven matches.
The 18-year-old is the first woman to win the US Open without dropping a set since Serena Williams in 2014.
Raducanu who is currently ranked World No.150, is the lowest-ranked player to win the US Open title since an unranked Kim Clijsters earned the first major of her comeback in Flushing Meadows in 2009. She’s however been projected to rocket to World No.23 in Monday’s new rankings.
Raducanu is also the first British woman to win a Grand Slam singles title in over 40 years. (Virginia Wade triumphed on home soil at Wimbledon 1977, the year of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.)
Raducanu in her victory press conference said, “It’s an absolute dream…You just have visions of yourself going up to the box, hugging everyone, celebrating. That’s something that you always think of, you always work for.
“With each match and tournament and week, I think I’ve really built in terms of confidence, in terms of my game, in terms of my ball striking. Everything came together today. I think to pull off some of the shots I did in the big moments when I really needed it was just an accumulation of everything I’ve learnt in the past five weeks.
“I think what I did very well this tournament was press in the moments that I really needed to. I guess that’s why I didn’t drop a set on paper, even though all of the matches were extremely challenging.”
While looking back on the ace that won her championship point, the teenager said, “I don’t think I made one serve that wide in the whole match, to be honest. I was like, ‘If I’m going to make it, this is going to be the time.’ I literally drove my legs up to that ball toss like never before. I landed it. Just disbelief, trying to take everything in, all the moment.
“I think the biggest thing that you have visions of is, for me, it was just winning, the winning moment, and going to celebrate with your team in the box, trying to find your way up to the box, just seeing them after the match. That’s been playing in my head, like, a couple nights. I’ve fallen asleep to that.”
