What were you doing when you were 18? I for one was spending most of my time lounging in front of the TV, avoiding schoolwork like the plague, and partaking in other unmentionable activities…
I certainly wasn’t playing in the final of a Grand Slam.
The same cannot be said for Britain’s 18 year old tennis starlet Emma Raducanu, who finds herself making history with every serve, volley, and winner she’s played en route to the 2021 US Open final.
Tennis fans first took notice of Raducanu as she embarked on a sensational run to the fourth round at Wimbledon earlier in the summer, before being forced to retire early due to an illness.
It’s been at the US Open however that she’s taken the world by storm. Becoming the first qualifier in history, men’s or women’s, to reach the final of a major, Raducanu finds herself on the brink of writing her name into tennis folklore forever.
A win tonight would see her pull off one of the most incredible feats in sporting history.
The woman standing in her way? Canada’s Leylah Fernandez, who is.. 19 years old. Yes, both 2021 US Open finalists are in their teens. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?
The last Grand Slam final to feature two teenagers was over twenty years ago, when Serena Williams beat Martina Hingis to win her first Grand Slam in 1999. One of the most dominant athletes in history in Serena Williams, and Hingis a 7 time Grand Slam winner. Undoubtedly two of tennis’s greatest competitors.
It begs the question then; are we witnessing the genesis of tennis’s next superstars?
Raducanu has certainly been on a stratospheric trajectory this year, and at just 18 years of age, one has to wonder what more we’re going to see her achieve throughout her career.
Entering the WTA rankings at a modest 727 in 2017, Fernandez too has enjoyed a remarkable rise to stardom. Ranked 66th in the world now, an improvement of over 650 places in just five seasons, suggest this Grand Slam final is just the first of many.
There can of course only be one winner, but no matter which of these prodigious stars emerges victorious from Flushing Meadows, we can rest assured that the future of female tennis, and tennis as a whole, is in very safe hands.
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