If Emma Raducanu needs any inspiration as she prepares for a crucial few weeks in her career, the stunning rise of Jack Draper should remind her how glorious this game can be.
Back in November 2019, the Amazon Prime Video Future Talent Award saw Raducanu and Draper handed £60,000 after they were identified as the brightest young junior players bursting through the ranks in British tennis.
Raducanu and Draper were photographed standing alongside Andy Murray as the donation was announced and back then, it was young Jack who may have been the most likely prospect to make a big breakthrough in the game.
He had enjoyed a run to the Junior Wimbledon final the year before and he was seen as one of the brightest prospects in the game.
Raducanu was still very much a player for the future, but the world knew all about her less than two years later as she was crowned as US Open champion in what was one of the greatest sports stories of all-time.
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“What Emma did was incredibly inspiring,” said Draper of Raducanu’s US Open win. ”I’ve known her from a young age and to see what she did was incredible. I was very proud of her, very excited, watching it thinking, obviously we’ve watched the likes of Andy Murray winning a Grand Slam from Great Britain, but her winning, it was just really a fairytale run.
“I definitely think as a competitor, it fuelled my fire. I really wanted to achieve what she’d done, winning a grand slam.”
Draper has yet to have his own Grand Slam moment, but his story was remarkably similar to that of Raducanu for the 18 months after her US Open win.
Injuries were a constant theme for the British duo as they struggled to adapt to the physical demands of life on the senior tour, with fleeting moments of hope interspersed with lay-offs that left questions over whether either could make it in the unforgiving tennis world.
Those questions started to evaporate for Draper as he proved he was a big-time player at the same venue where Raducanu won the US Open, as he reached the semi-final at Flushing Meadows last year.
He has kicked on from there to win his first Masters 1000 title at Indian Wells in March, bursting into the top 10 of the ATP Rankings in the process.
Now he will be a top five player when the rankings are updated on Monday after his thrilling run of success at the Madrid Open and he will head into the French Open and Wimbledon this summer as a live contender to lift both titles.
Raducanu is not in that position, despite some kind of wins and an impressive run to the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 tournament in Miami in March.
Her performances in that event in Florida fuelled the belief that she could be a contender for the biggest titles in tennis once again, but she lost some of the momentum she appeared to be building up when she opted to take time away from tennis after building up that momentum attracted some predictable criticism.
Right now, the harsh truth must be that Draper has built himself into a player who can sustain success on the ATP Tour, but Raducanu is viewed a player who can threaten the best when she is fit and motivated… and those occasions are not frequent enough for her to be considered a contender for the biggest prizes in the women’s game.
This fine young player has the talent to silence all of her doubters as the tennis year enters its most significant phase, with the French Open and Wimbledon offering one of the most captivating players in the women’s game a stage to prove she can match Draper and thrive at the top of the sport.
Raducanu will always be a Grand Slam champion and while her critics like to suggest that win was something of a sporting fluke, the story she created in New York back in 2021 will always ensure she has a special place in tennis folklore.
If that is Raducanu’s only lasting legacy in tennis, it will be a fine one, as it inspired young girls around the world to pick up a racket and believe the impossible could be turned into reality.
If she can now add more glorious moments to her tennis story and join Draper as a consistent winner, Raducanu’s status in the sport will move to the next level.
The post Emma Raducanu can draw inspiration from Jack Draper as she faces similar obstacles appeared first on Tennis365.
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