the times | Saturday June 11 2022 1GS 24Comment Sport
withdrew, after only seven games of
her opening match in Nottingham on
Tuesday, she was under no obligation
to do post-match media and yet, at a
time that must have been extremely
distressing, she still showed up.
That withdrawal was not merely a
case of an everyday side strain. It was
the latest of many unconnected minor
injuries, the accumulation of which
she has acknowledged to be a cause of
anxiety. More to the point, it left her
unsure whether she would be able to
play at Wimbledon — and it is not just
her and her vast British fanbase who
are desperate to see her play there, she
is also heavily tied in commercially.
Among her many endorsement
contracts, Evian and Vodafone are
Wimbledon sponsors and have
therefore targeted the tournament to
activate the sponsorship.
An average 19-year-old would just
escape or head to the beach.
Raducanu is too tied in for such an
option. While this must be so hard to
deal with, the manner in which sheconducts herself after these defeats is
extraordinarily composed. With the
media, she is patient and always
makes a genuine effort. She never
snaps. Many would.
The media have, on the whole,
been respectful and sympathetic in
return. There is a view that she
should just be left alone to get on
with it — which is wishful thinking.
The world of professional sport
doesn’t work like that.
She is complicit in this too. She has
a number of blue-chip sponsors that
have paid for her name to be out
there; they make advertisements with
her because they want exposure and
association, and more so now than at
any other time of the year. This is the
web that has been woven around her.
Again, escaping to the beach isn’t an
option.
There is a view, to which I
subscribe, that she hasn’t been well
managed. IMG, her management
agency, has done brilliantly at making
her wealthy, but does not seem tohave been very effective at helping
her to be good at tennis. That is just a
personal view, having been writing
about sport for more than 30 years.
Raducanu has been a professional
tennis player for one — of course she
will make mistakes.
The deal for her, though, is that she
has to wear them all in public. Every
error, every defeat, every opinion,
every injury, every setback. As
Rooney says, teenagers are not built
to handle it. Yet she has managed to.
Winning the US Open in September
looked so much fun — this is a
different challenge altogether.
Back then when she won in New
York, this year’s Wimbledon looked,
from far off, like a great homecoming.
That is also, probably now, a case of
wishful thinking. Haven’t we all
adjusted expectations?
Instead, it is shaping up to be her
greatest test of resilience. Everything
we know about this remarkable
young athlete suggests that she will
pass it.The burden
on Raducanu
is unique in
British sport
Owen Slot
Chief Sports Writer
R
ight at the top of the
Amazon Prime
documentary Rooney that
was released this year, the
36-year-old one-time
prodigy tells us what it was like to be
him as a young man. “What people
don’t understand,” he says, “is you
are 17, 18 years of age. You are not
supposed to be able to handle it.”
Indeed you are not. It is unnatural
to have so much pressure and
expectation on young shoulders.
Wayne Rooney was 18 when he made
his big-tournament debut for England
at Euro 2004 and this is how he
recalls it: “I felt like, if we are going to
win the tournament, it’s because of
me; if we don’t, it’s because of me.”
And, yes, he handled it.
Maybe he didn’t handle it two years
later at the 2006 World Cup, when he
was sent off against Portugal.
“Loneliest place I’ve been,” he recalls
of his confinement to the dressing
room. And yes, he blamed himself for
England’s defeat. That is a lot for a
20-year-old.
This is a column about Emma
Raducanu, but it starts with
Rooney because I have been
trying to assess whether any
young British athlete has ever
felt such exposure and
expectation.
I started with
thinking about Tom
Daley, who grew
up before our
eyes. From being
14 years old and
competing in the
Beijing Olympics
in 2008 to winning
gold in Tokyo 13
years later, he is like a
friend growing up in a
photo album. Yet he
only felt that glare of
external pressure once
every four years.
I thought also about Jonny
Wilkinson, whom I first met
when he was 19. You won’t find
a young athlete more prepared
to sacrifice their adolescence on
the altar of success. By the time
he got to the 2003 World Cup, he
had public expectation very much
weighing him down yet he had
brought this pressure upon himself,
even from his school days.
Then there is Jessica Ennis-Hill, the
face of the London 2012 Olympics.
Expected to deliver. Yet she was 26 —
Raducanu is only 19, and will be theface of Wimbledon for as long as she
plays.
It feels unprecedented in British life
to have had a young athlete thrust as
unremittingly into the public arena as
Raducanu. Rooney probably comes
closest, but being in a team rather
than a solo operator must make the
exposure more bearable. Wilkinson
had Inga Tuigamala as a touchstone
in his early Newcastle Falcons days
and Rob Andrew as a guide; Rooney
had a dressing room teeming with big
names and experience plus, of course,
Sir Alex Ferguson.
Was anyone so exposed as
Raducanu? In the five-month period
from early July last year, when
Raducanu broke into the Wimbledon
fourth round and, simultaneously, the
public’s affection, The Daily Telegraph
carried a picture of her on its front
page 15 times. It’s not as if we at The
Times are so very different; we had a
front-page photograph of her on
Wednesday, and that was just to
record the fact that she had had to
pull out of a tiny tournament in
Nottingham.
This should be placed into the
context of where she emerged from.
It is not as if there had been any
front-page Raducanu snaps before
this period; before last year’s
Wimbledon she was
completing her A-levels
and, in tennis terms, had
barely been heard of.
This personal
culture shock is
recorded in the new
book Emma
Raducanu: When
Tennis Came Home, by
the tennis writer Mike
Dickson. “Her values will
be tested at times in the
coming years,” he writes.
“Tennis does that to
young people.” Indeed,
and no more so than on
the eve of Wimbledon.
From my reasonable
perspective, she is passing
that test impeccably. The
two most recent times I
have seen her have been
her past two matches —
one defeat, one
withdrawal — and the
two press conferences
thereafter. When sheDiIt is an old joke that being
voted Gallagher Premiership
player of the year is a stain
on your career because it
means that Eddie Jones
won’t pick you for England.
Poor old Ben Earl was, this
week, voted player of the
year — and Jones has cold-
shouldered him, now, for a
year. He follows other
winners — Sam Simmonds,
Jack Willis and Danny
Cipriani — who all failed to
impress Jones, the head
coach, when they wereimpressing just about
everyone else.
The greatest selection
injustice in the entire Jones
era made the shortlist last
week and will, no doubt,
give everyone a reminder of
what Jones is missing out
on when he plays for
Harlequins against Saracens
in the first Premiership semi-
final this afternoon.
Pretty much since the day
in 2018 that Jones dropped
him, Danny Care has been
the best English scrum halfin the Premiership. I say
“English” here because Faf
de Klerk has had his
moments for Sale Sharks,
and “pretty much” because
there have been periods
when Wasps’ Dan Robson
has hit similar heights.
Yet Jones has studiously
ignored Care. With Marcus
Smith, the Quins No 10,
rising to the fore as Jones’s
first-choice fly half, you may
have thought that this
would trigger a rethink and
that Jones would reinvest inCare. Well, you may have
thought that...
It is no secret that at some
point in Care’s (last) 2018
England campaign, he made
the mistake of voicing an
opinion that Jones didn’t
like. I suspect that we’ll find
out what that was when his
autobiography comes out.
Until then, enjoy Care in
action today; he doesn’t do
poor performances — which
makes his exile all the more
baffling and, at some point,
all the more readable.Care must have a good story to tell about why Jones won’t pick him now
Raducanu will
be the face of
Wimbledon for
as long as she
plays thereNATHAN STIRK/LTA/GETTY IMAGESRooney was only 18
when he starred for
England at Euro 2004 *