Emma Raducanu has opened up about the stalker nightmare in Dubai, stating she was \u201ccould barely breathe\u201d when she spotted the same man who left her a note and took her photograph ahead of her match.<\/p>\n
In her first press conference since the incident, Raducanu<\/a> has admitted that it has affected her daily life although she is determined to continue \u201cdoing what I love to do\u201d.<\/p>\n The 2021 US Open winner faced Karolina Muchova in the second round of the Dubai Tennis Championships on 18 February and she noticed the man very early on during the encounter.<\/p>\n After two completed games, a visibly emotional Raducanu went over to the chair umpire to inform the official about the stalker and then went to cower behind the umpire\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n The man was removed by security and Raducanu managed to complete the match with the WTA<\/a> later issuing a press release that stated \u201ca man who exhibited fixated behaviour\u201d was ejected from the venue.<\/p>\n He has since been handed a restraining order and banned from future tournaments, and Dubai authorities have confirmed that the man \u201capproached her, left her a note, took her photograph, and engaged in behaviour that caused her distress during the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships\u201d.<\/p>\n But it was a harrowing experience for the 22-year-old as she revealed to The Athletic: \u201cI was obviously very distraught. I saw him first game of the match, and I was like: \u2018I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to finish.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI literally couldn\u2019t see the ball through the tears, I could barely breathe. I was playing Karolina, who\u2019s like top 17 in the world or something, and I can\u2019t see the ball. Then the first four games kind of ran away from me because I was not on the court, to be honest. I\u2019m not really sure how I regrouped.\u201d<\/p>\n Emma Raducanu\u2019s tennis future in the spotlight as she prepares for \u2018make or break\u2019 decision<\/a><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu\u2019s ranking, prize money, sponsors and her next tournament<\/a><\/p>\n She added: \u201cIt was a very emotional time. After the match I did break down in tears, but not necessarily because I lost. There was just so much emotion in the last few weeks of the events happening, and I just needed that week off to take a breather and come here. I feel a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n After spending the last few weeks back home in England with her parents, Raducanu is ready to step back on court at the Indian Wells Open.<\/p>\n She will get her campaign underway on Thursday against Moyuka Uchijima and she has a defiant message to the man who has caused her a lot of distress.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a part of you that thinks, \u2018I\u2019m not gonna let a middle-aged creep stop me doing what I love to do,’\u201d the world No 55 said. \u201cI\u2019m here because I feel a lot better now.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot happened obviously after Dubai, so I just needed to kind of take my time after. I think the allure of Indian Wells being my favourite tournament, I just couldn\u2019t really step away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Emma Raducanu \u2018couldn\u2019t see through the tears\u2019 as she recalls terrifying stalker ordeal<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emma Raducanu has opened up about the stalker nightmare in Dubai, stating she was \u201ccould barely breathe\u201d when she spotted the same man who left her a note and took her photograph ahead of her match. In her first press conference since the incident, Raducanu has admitted that it has affected her daily life although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Emma Raducanu News<\/h3>\n