Emma Raducanu

Emma Raducanu

For one late-summer fortnight in 2021, Emma Raducanu turned a qualifier's wild card into the most improbable run tennis had seen. An 18-year-old ranked outside the top 100, she arrived at the US Open needing to win three matches just to make the main draw, then won seven more without dropping a set. No one had done it before: she became the first qualifier, man or woman, to win a major in the Open era, and the first British woman to take a Grand Slam singles title since 1977. Her 1 title stands as its own kind of miracle, the ball struck early and flat off both wings, a teenager playing without fear on the sport's biggest stage.

The follow-up proved harder than the fairytale. Raducanu climbed to a career high of world No. 10 in July 2022, but the years since have been a stop-start story of injuries, wrist and ankle surgery among them, and a long parade of coaches passing through her box. She has traded blows with the very best, Iga Swiatek and Maria Sakkari among her repeat opponents, and the clean, precocious ball-striking that lit up New York is still there when her body allows it. The tale is unfinished: the champion the sport met at 18 is still searching for the run that follows.