Tennis legend turned broadcaster John McEnroe has not changed his tune on Emma Raducanu, even after the British teenager won the 2021 US Open on Saturday.
“I wanted to say exactly what I said,” McEnroe told CNN in an interview in reference to comments he made about Raducanu’s ability to handle tennis spotlights.
McEnroe previously suggested, after Raducanu retired from Wimbledon in July, due to respiratory problems, that the pressure of his Grand Slam debut “ended a little too much” for the rising star.
“I tried to relate it in a small way to my experience when I went to Wimbledon also at 18,” McEnroe said of his four-set defeat in 1977 against Jimmy Connors in the semifinals.
“[Raducanu] I did it better than I did. I played Jimmy Connors, I hadn’t been to the Center Court and I remember my legs were shaking, I was totally overwhelmed by the experience and almost happy not to have won.
McEnroe took heat for his earlier comments about Raducanu. At the time, it was still unclear what exactly happened to Raducanu and his opponent, Ajla Tomljanovic, that McEnroe’s statements were “definitely harsh.”
“I then went to Stanford for a year [after Wimbledon] and he had some time to mentally regroup and prepare for the rigors of the tour, “said McEnroe, who in 1978 led the Stanford team to an NCAA championship and won the individual title. of the NCAA.
“There are many great advances, but there is also pressure that you put on yourself and the expectations that others impose on you. I mean for me it was as vanilla as it was … I was very supportive of her, I thought, at the time. Get to know the papers in England. Sometimes they are nothing to me,
“I do not think he can do better than her [at the US Open]. It’s crazy he could have done that. Of course, the pressure comes with that, the expectation. I’m sure he hopes to earn a lot more to move forward. “
In his previous comments, McEnroe said he hopes Raducanu can learn from his first experience at Wimbledon.
“It seems like a little too much has been done, understandably, especially with what we’ve been talking about for the last six weeks. [Naomi] Osaka not even here, ”he said in July. “How much can the players bear? It makes you look at the guys who have existed and the girls for so long. How well they can do it ”.
With the victory, Raducanu rose to the ranks of tennis from number 336 in the world to 150. He is the toast of England and is now one of the rising stars of the sport.
Days before beating fellow teenage Leylah Fernandez, 6-4, 6-3, at the U.S. Open, Raducanu appeared on British Vogue. Weeks before that, she had finished high school and attended graduation parties like any other traditional teenager.
Days after her major victory at Flushing Meadows in New York, Raducanu attended the Met Gala, dressed in Chanel, just before her 19th birthday in November.