John McEnroe stands by controversial comments made about US Open champion Emma Raducanu

Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 02:13

Retired American legend John McEnroe came under fire for some comments made about Emma Raducanu in July when the British teenager retired in her Wimbledon match, but he now states he was supportive of her at the time and praised her for her recent US Open victory.

During her round of 16 match at the All England Club, Raducanu retired citing breathing difficulties. However, McEnroe, who was doing commentary for the match on BBC, said the occasion seemed to be "too much" for her.

“I feel bad for Emma, obviously,” McEnroe said at the time. “It appears it just got a little bit too much, as is understandable, particularly with what we’ve been talking about this over the last six weeks with Osaka not even here.

"How much can players handle? It makes you look at the guys that have been around and the girls for so long – how well they can handle it. Hopefully she’ll learn from this experience.”

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The three-time Wimbledon champion received a lot of backlash for the comments, but claimed they were blown out of proportion.

“I meant exactly what I said,” McEnroe told CNN. “I tried to relate it in a small way to my experience when I first went to Wimbledon also at 18.

“There’s a lot of great upsides, but there’s also pressure you put on yourself and expectations that others put on you. I mean that was to me as vanilla as it comes ... I was very supportive of her, I thought, at the time.

“You know the papers over in England. Sometimes they, like, make a big deal out of, to me, nothing.”

Arthur Ajayi

Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.

As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.

With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.

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