There’s No Pressure, I Literally Won a Slam

By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday, June 29, 2022

After falling in second-round action to Caroline Garcia on Centre Court on Day 3, Emma Raducanu explained her feelings on playing in the pressure vacuum of Wimbledon, as a top British star.

Get ready for it…

“I am 19 years old. Yes, I have had attention,” she said. “But I’m a Slam champion, so no one’s going to take that away from me. Yeah, if anything, the pressure is on those who haven’t done that.”

It’s a healthy perspective that Raducanu has. She’s already climbed to the top of the tennis mountain. And, yes, there are expectations for her to get back there again. But why let the pressure create undo friction in her career as she tries to do that?

Clearly Raducanu has her own way of seeing the world, and her blossoming career, and even though she fell in second-round action on Wednesday, she can still continue to grow from the experience of making her Centre Court debut this year at Wimbledon.

Shaking off injury concerns, she was able to defeat Alison Van Uytvanck, a heralded grass-court player in the first round. Today, she fell short, but the future is still bright for the 2021 US Open champion.

And as she prepares to defend her US Open title this summer, Raducanu says she’s not going to get stressed out about it one bit.

“There’s no pressure,” she said. “Like, why is there any pressure? I’m still 19. Like, it’s a joke. I literally won a slam. Going back to New York, it’s going to be cool because I have got a lot of experiences playing on big courts, playing with people in the stadium, playing with the spotlight on you.

“I don’t mind that. I mean, for me, everything is learning. I’m embracing every single moment that is thrown at me.”