Emma Raducanu, Marketa Vondrousova and a tale of two Grand Slam champions

New York Times

02-07-2025

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — In a parallel universe, Wednesday's Wimbledon matchup between Grand Slam champions Emma Raducanu and Markéta Vondroušová is a second-week showdown between two top-10 players. Maybe one day it will be.
In this universe, it is something else: a duel of two cautionary tales. Tales of the highs of shooting-star success, followed by injury-riddled lows. Tales of the stress of enough expectations, both internal and external to last a career. All of which have happened in what should be the first years of their careers, heavy with the pressure to do what they have already done all over again.
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'She had it way worse because she is from a bigger country,' Vondroušová, the 2023 Wimbledon champion, said of Raducanu in her news conference after beating McCartney Kessler, the No. 32 seed, in her opening match.
Perhaps, but Raducanu, 22, has watched what Vondroušová has gone through as a kindred spirit. She remembers seeing the Czech make the French Open final as an unseeded 19-year-old, the same age Raducanu was when she won the U.S. Open as a qualifier.
'She was so young there, always seemed way above me, way further ahead than me,' Raducanu said in a news conference.
'Then she had a wrist surgery and then came back and won Wimbledon, which is incredible.'
Raducanu and Vondroušová played each other at Wimbledon in 2021. That was out on Court 12, when Raducanu was a largely unknown wild card making a surprise run to the round of 16 just weeks after taking her university admission test. By the end of the summer, she was the first British woman to win a Grand Slam since Virginia Wade in 1977.
For Vondroušová, that was a couple of tennis lifetimes and one wrist surgery ago. She first had a wrist operation in 2019, following that surprise French Open run. Last year, she had shoulder surgery, before playing barely any matches during the first half of this year as she tried to recover.
Last month, she finally played three pain-free matches, at the French Open. She wasn't even upset when Jessica Pegula eliminated her in three sets. She was just happy to be able to compete again, especially with the grass and Wimbledon on the horizon. Then she beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on her way to winning the Berlin Open, her first title since she won at the All England Club in 2023. Now she is back at the scene of her greatest achievement.
It has been a strange trip to get here — or perhaps it hasn't. Every year, at every Grand Slam, tennis fools fans, commentators and even the players themselves. Early success has the power to seduce, to make anyone think that more success must follow, even though at this point, everyone ought to know that that the sport almost never works that way.
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It's a dynamic Mirra Andreeva, the 18-year-old Russian, has been fighting in real time the past couple of months. Andreeva is not just the only teenager in the top 10; she's one of only two in the top 80. Maya Joint is the other. Andreeva won consecutive WTA 1,000 events — the level just below the Grand Slams — earlier this year, including Indian Wells, the so-called fifth major.
Since working with Conchita Martinez, herself a teen star in the 1980s, she had seemed to have gotten hold of a temper typical for a teenager under the stress of elite sport. But then came the second set of a French Open quarterfinal last month, in which she found herself losing to Loïs Boisson, the local wild card. The scoreboard, and the 15,000 people on Court Philippe-Chatrier willing the upset, had Andreeva yelling at members of her box to leave the court and swatting a ball high up to the roof. As it came back down, 15,000 loud boos came with it.
Andreeva dissolved in straight sets, and two weeks later, she was smacking a ball into the crowd in Berlin, after a call she didn't like led to a crucial break of serve.
In the moment, or just after it, Andreeva knows that she's fallen victim to what has afflicted so many young players before her. They've done big things before, and they can't understand why they can't do do them all the time, even though no one, not even Serena Williams, ever has.
'We're the ones that are putting pressure on ourselves,' Andreeva said in an interview at Wimbledon Tuesday, after she beat Mayar Sherif in straight sets. 'It's a matter of time until me personally I, I learn how to deal with it.'
She keeps quotes from other well-known athletes, including LeBron James, in a notebook she sometimes refers to during changeovers. Sometimes they work better than others.
'I'm already making progress, but of course there is a long way to go,' Andreeva said.
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Vondroušová and Raducanu have had to remind themselves of that a lot. Raducanu struggled to find her form after her breakout win at the U.S. Open. Then her body came under the stress of her first full seasons on the tour.
There were stretches when she could barely practice and had to enter tournaments and matches cold. For someone whose body hadn't really abandoned her before, it didn't make a lot of sense. That disorientation can be heavier than the pressure that comes with millions of dollars in endorsements, the being anointed the next big thing.
In spring 2023, she had surgery on both wrists. She's been climbing her way back since the start of last year, with no shortage of obstacles along the way. Some have been physical, including a recent back issue.
She's also had to deal with an incident of 'fixated behavior,' from a man who tracked her to a tournament in Dubai, where he was ejected from the stands after causing Raducanu distress during a match against Karolina Muchová. He has since been banned from professional tennis events.
'A lot has happened in the last four years,' Raducanu said ahead of the tournament.
On Wednesday evening against Vondroušová, Raducanu played like she was born for it, as though she'd been playing high-stakes matches on Centre Court and every other big stage all along. Her 6-3, 6-3 win over Vondroušová veered between businesslike and one-sided.
She had one wobble midway through the first set, giving back a service break, but then she got another one of her own in the next game and served out the set. Raducanu came in with a plan to go on the offensive, to not get sucked into the battles of speeds and spins where Vondroušová thrives.
Instead, she stood on the baseline or close to it, trying to figure where Vondroušová's balls were headed before she hit them. Then, knees bent, locked in, she hammered them back at the top of the bounce as often as she could, forcing Vondroušová to react to her rather than the other way around.
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That's what Grand Slam champions do when their games are working. And Raducanu's was working as well as it has at any point in the past two years. Some players get weak in the knees when they walk onto Centre Court. Raducanu's seemed to get steadier, as though she is beginning to believe once again that this is where she is supposed to be.
Raducanu pumped her fist and let out a yell as she watched Vondroušová float a ball deep to give her the service break in the third game of the second set. From there, Raducanu kept cutting loose, finishing Vondroušová off with a last flurry of aggression and power.
Then it was time to wave like the hometown favorite she is. For one day at least, that other universe seemed a little closer to the real one, including the showdown waiting Friday with world No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka.
'There are some points I had no idea how I turned around,' she said on the court when it was over. 'I'm just so happy I get to play another match here.'
On Centre Court, and all around the grounds of the All England Club, are players who can look across the net or the locker room and see the next version of themselves, as well as the big challenge that lies ahead.
'From a pretty young age, it just happens, our identity becomes very wrapped up in being a tennis player,' said Madison Keys, who has fought a 16-year battle against the pressures of promise. 'That's great, but when you have the tough kind of weeks, months, years on tour, that can really take a toll on how you think about yourself as a person.'
Leylah Fernandez, the player Raducanu beat in the 2021 U.S. Open final, was having one of those weeks Wednesday. The No. 29 seed was wiping away tears a couple of hours after she lost to Laura Siegemund of Germany. At 37, Siegmund has dropped to No. 104 in the rankings. She can be crafty and tricky, but this looked like a friendly path to the third round, until it wasn't.
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Siegemund won 6-2, 6-3. Fernandez said she felt like she hadn't even shown up on the court.
'Early success brings in a lot of great stuff,' she said after the defeat, but it also put blinders on her, preventing her from taking a macro view. Instead, she found herself focusing on the losses and the difficult moments.
Emma Navarro, the world No. 10 who didn't experience a quick rise until after she had a few years of college behind her, said she spent her late teen years building what she called 'a hard shell.' It helps her deal with the fraught territory that can come with success.
'Thinking about my 17-year-old self, if I had to deal with the criticism and even attention, you know, positive or negative, it's really tough at that age,' Navarro said after her first-round win over two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitová.
'I cringe a little when I see younger kids, dealing with that much attention.'