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If you think that was impressive you should have seen her yesterday. Comfortable is not the word. Imposing or masterful is a better one. I have rarely seen a female player hit the ball so consistently hard. Sara Tormo didn't know if she was coming or going and was reduced to just shaking her head in disbelief.Originally Posted by the other bob wilson
Someone forecast that Raducanu will soon be the best returner of serve in the women's game. I can quite believe it after watching that performance.
I turned on the tennis to see Raducanu 0-2 and 0-40 down in the first set.
She won the first set 6-2 and is now 5-0 up in the second.
Martina Navratilova seems impressed. She just said when you see someone special like a Nadal, Djokovic or Hingis you know it Seems to think Raducanu is special.
Very early days but she does seem to have something.
6-2 6-1
with that win she's British number 1.
ranked 350 odd in the world 6 months ago, now 72.
She will be British number 1 for a long, ong time on the strength of the last two performances
If she continues to make this sort of progress she will be world number 1 before long.
This is the sort of 18 year old other countries have
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That’s impressive, bright future ahead.
I think we need to move on from truly 'Welsh' or truly 'British' type discussions.
If she qualifies for Britain and feels like committing to Britain, then let he play.
Wales have benefitted from people in Britain who could have qualified for the home nations and picked us.
My kids qualify for Uganda and Wales (and England) - my son would choose Uganda and my girls Wales. Families are moving around more nowadays and marriages and heritages of people more and more mixed. Where someone belongs is becoming less about where that person was born. My youngest daughter was born in Cardiff but lived there for only 18 months - and yet at 14 she feels more of a connection to Cardiff than the other two.
While of course someone can't pick a random country because they played Risk or watched a youtube video, but let's give people more freedom to choose and as long as they can demonstrate a connection to the country, let them get on with it.
As for Emma, she's brilliant. Really great technique and quick around the court.
I agree.
Although I soon gave up on Bolton v Burton, I was switching around between football, golf (Solheim Cup) and tennis last night, but watched much of Radacanu's game. In the first couple of games Martin Navratalova was saying it was adrenalin that was making Emma hit balls a bit too long and that she should soon settle down. She was right and once that happened, it was a bit of a massacre - she is thrashing top fifty players in this tournament and the question now is has she got it in her to beat top ten players? Based on what we've seen in the past ten days or so, the answer is, almost certainly, yes.
That said, although you have players like Serena Williams who is on a par with the greats the men's game has seen over the last fifteen years or so, women's tennis during that time is a little like that Andy Warhol thing about everyone having fifteen minutes of fame. I don't pay attention to tennis enough to be sure of this, but it seems to me that there have been plenty of women players who've enjoyed a great run to win or be runner up in a Grand Slam final and then they disappear back into, relative, obscurity, so I suppose Radacanu could be another one of those - although to hear Martina talking last night, she clearly doesn't think so.
The UK (predominantly England) is able to invest so much into sport - and choses to do so - and globalisation allows for best young athletes and/or coaches to travel to where there is the most growth and for best ideas to spread rapidly.
I don't think we can make this sort of comment any more.
That's a very well observed point. I do follow tennis and even play a bit. But women's tennis certainly suffers more than the mens game from women becoming prominent for a season or two and then falling down the rankings. I could go on to speculate about that and the reasons for it, but let's hope Radacanu rises and stays at the top for a long time. Navratilova is one of the most thoughtful commentators on tennis.
Difficult to say how much further she can go this year but her potential is phenomenal given the two runs she has had in her first two slams.
This one now into the 3rd week given she had to qualify first.
It's impressive.
The way women's tennis seems to work, if she can be in and around the top 20 then you have a decent chance of doing something at the slams, particularly with Serena missing more.
I'm assuming the men's game would be fairly similar if we didn't have the absolute dominance from 3 players over the last 10 years or so.
she's still very new, I guess sooner or later people will work out more effective ways to play against her, the. it's whether she can adapt her game to counteract that.
exciting times though, up against the Olympics gold medal winner next
We've had this conversation before and rightly so with the likes of Rudeski and Konta but this girl has been living in the UK since the age of 2. What nationality would anyone expect her to feel other than British?
Clever girl got a few, A+ A levels as well , one being maths , born in Canada to Chinese mum and Romanian dad , who are economists I think ,they must be very proud , she is only 18
Just taken the first set in her Quarter Final.
from 0-2 and 1-3 down as well
6-3 6-4
Straight sets win. Fantastic!
First ever qualifier to reach a Semi Final.
She’s sounding pretty overwhelmed in her post match interview, but, on court, she’s 18 going on 30 - Mary Joe Fernandez said it was the performance of the tournament so far.
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