Emma Raducanu hid behind the umpire’s chair during a match for fear of a stalker. Now the British woman has spoken out about the incident.
Tennis star Emma Raducanu has spoken for the first time about the stalking incident at the Dubai tournament in mid-February. She “literally couldn’t see the ball for tears and I could barely breathe,” the Brit said ahead of the Indian Wells tournament. Since the incident, she said, she has been more vigilant and has increased security.
In Dubai, a man had made the 2021 US Open champion cry in her second-round match against Czech Karolína Muchová. The man had apparently followed her to the tournaments in Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Doha before that.
Information passed on too late
One day before the match, the man approached Raducanu near the players’ hotel, handed her a letter and took a photo with the 22-year-old. She reported this to her own team, but they did not pass the information on to the WTA and the tournament organization until the next day. Additional security precautions could not be taken in the short time available.
Raducanu had hidden behind the umpire’s chair during the match. The man was banned from the stands. The umpire and Muchova took care of Raducanu, who continued to play and lost the game.
Police in Dubai later arrested the man. He had signed a formal agreement to distance himself from Raducanu. He was banned from future tournaments. The athlete dropped the charges against him.
Stalking verdict 2022
The man would be banned from all WTA events until it was clear whether there was a threat, the professional organization WTA announced. The spectator had previously shown “fixated behavior” towards Raducanu in a public area.
In 2022, a man was convicted of stalking Raducanu and sentenced to unpaid community service, and he was also banned from contacting her for five years. There was no further information about the identity of the man who was banned in Dubai.