Emma Raducanu: Tennis world captivated by US Open’s young star – but now comes her greatest challenge
The 18-year-old has never faced a top-40 player and Belinda Bencic knows a thing or two about being a teenage prodigy
We’re hoping that our Canadian-Chinese-Romanian is better than the Swiss’ Slovak.
Have I got that right?
The way things are these days you could probably qualify as French if you happened to have been on a day trip to Boulogne when you were at school.
Meanwhile the ‘Guardian’ has a warning for both:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/sep/07/ceaseless-noise-of-judgment-has-dehumanised-young-sport-stars
It’s like the Cold War space race between the US and the USSR – who had the better German rocket scientists?
That’s exactly the echo I had in my head…..
Charles Murray, I think either said or was quoted on the mathematical Olympics, that our Chinese(US) would beat their Chinese (China). And it has come to pass……..
JuliaM- i get that it’s not a bed of roses. But i’m not buying they’re just normal peeps. To get that good they’ve been practicing every day for hours since they were four, to play an edwardian garden game. I don’t expect my concert pianists to be average joes, nor so top 100 tennis players. And they have to love winning hate losing, ie. be ridiculously competitive, and yah those types often throw their toys out of the pram or despair when the hard work doesn’t pay off. For the Guardian to blame their conniptions on people who just like to watch sport is ridiculous. The abuse for tennis players, the seriously demented stuff, all comes from insanely addicted indebted gamblers who bet their shirt mid game e.g. that a player’s going to break serve on love 40. When she loses 5 points in a row to lose the game that gambling nut then vents threats and abuse on the player. The same phenomenon will happen with men, the abusive words are different but the underlying cause is the same. This article was trying to shoehorn news events into guardians overaching grand narrative.
There are at least three members of the current English football squad who were qualified to play for the Irish Republic – Grealish, Bamford, and Rice. How about Kane – sounds a bit Irish to me? Maguire? Kieran Trippier? And Lord knows how many were qualified to turn out for bits of Africa or the Caribbean.
I suppose somebody knows how many of that squad have four English grandparents, but maybe not; it’s knowing that someone has one exotic grandparent that is valuable information. Soon “exotic” might include “English”.
How many of the Swiss national squad are Albanians or Slavs?
Dearieme
Thirty years ago, they would all have played for Ireland. Big Jack would have seen to that.
As for the Swiss, same for Austria – and look how many Africans and Turks play for Germany ( not to mention Bel and Fra).
As attractive as these East European automata are, I really miss watching “proper” young proteges like Tracey Austin or Carling Bassett or Gabriela Sabatini ( and of course that fine figure of womanhood Sue Barker). I simply can’t remember who these modern girls are, their names wash over me in a flood of incomprehension.
The last woman I made a point of watching was Anna Kournikova. Her topspin lobs captivated me so………
I don’t remember such outpouring when Zola Budd came here and got loads of flack.
Tim
” our Canadian-Chinese-Romanian”
But that’s the entirety of the point: she’s OUR Canadian-Chinese-Romanian 🙂