18-year-old Emma Raducanu caps stunning U.S. Open run with finals victory
In one of the more stunning runs in recent tennis history, Great Britain's Emma Radacanu defeated fellow teenager, Canada's Leylah Fernandez, 6-4, 6-3, on Saturday in the women's final at Arthur Ashe stadium in New York.
It's the first major tournament title for the 18-year-old (the youngest player to achieve such a feat since Maria Sharapova won at Wimbledon in 2004), who was competing in just the second Grand Slam event of her career. She burst onto the scene with a run to the fourth round at Wimbledon earlier this year, but still had to earn her way through qualifiers to enter the main draw at the U.S. Open. No player in the history of tennis has ever won any of the big four tournaments taking that route.
Both Raducanu and Fernandez — who knocked off Naomi Osaka in the third round — were surprise finalists, and it appears women's tennis may have two new stars for years to come.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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