The teenager chooses the right shot and can make her opponent play worse, which is a really big skill to have
What Emma Raducanu has done is remarkable. I don’t think anybody could have expected anything of this magnitude, really. That’s nine matches without dropping a set. In fact, only one person has got to five, let alone a tiebreak and that was in qualifying. In her second grand slam, on her US Open debut, she’s lost an average of four and a half games per match. That is remarkable. This is the sort of stuff that Rafa Nadal was doing in his heyday, or Bjorn Borg or Serena Williams or Steffi Graf. This kid was doing her A-levels. This is an amazing performance. And I just think it’s rather inspiring, really.
She seems to handle the pressure very well. She chooses the right shot to play. You would think that at some point she might get a little uptight, but absolutely none of it. What is also remarkable is that she makes other people play worse. That’s a really big skill to have here. If she thinks somebody’s missing a forehand, she’ll go there until they make one. Her service motion is not something that looks like it’s going to let her down.