By the time Emma Raducanu sat down for a Q&A session with an excited group of ball kids at the Dubai Tennis Championships this week, she was already three weeks and four countries into a terrifying ordeal. You would not have known it.
As Raducanu sat smiling and cross-legged, she sportingly fielded questions about whether she had ever been a ball girl (no), which player from the past she would most like to have played against (Ashleigh Barty), and what advice she would offer aspiring tennis players (work hard daily).
So far, so good for a woman who, even at the age of 22, has long since become a past master in the art of answering tricky queries. But children can be the toughest inquisitors and, accustomed though she may be to dealing with packed press rooms at the world’s biggest tournaments, the final question momentarily floored her.
‘This is not a tennis-related question, but who’s your celebrity crush?’ asked a young boy.
‘Who’s my celebrity crush?’ repeated Raducanu, laughing a little self-consciously as she adjusted her top. ‘I’m focused on myself right now. I don’t have time for any crushes.’
Raducanu’s young questioner could hardly have known it, but his inquiry was closer to home than anyone present could have imagined at the time.
There are many shades of infatuation, and by all accounts the man who was given a restraining order this week in Dubai after following the former US Open champion from south-east Asia to the Persian Gulf was probably at the darker end of the scale.
Crushes were probably the last thing Raducanu wanted to consider, yet she handled the question no less deftly and good-naturedly than she would later deal with the man who displayed ‘fixated behaviour’ towards her, against whom she dropped all charges once he signed a restraining order.
Emma Raducanu, seen here at the official players’ party, remained upbeat in public at the Dubai Tennis Championships – despite undergoing a terrifying ordeal behind the scenes
Raducanu’s former Roman Kelecic, who has been working with her recently, has claimed a man had been following her from tournament to tournament
Kelecic told the Croatian outlet Net that Raducanu was followed across four countries. ‘This man followed her to Singapore, to Abu Dhabi, again in Doha, and now in Dubai,’ Kelecic said
The revelation of character is a central tenet of any sport, and tennis more than most. Yet no athlete should have to draw on their mental strength simply to go about their daily business. Given the details that have emerged about what Raducanu went through in the weeks leading up to her appearance in Dubai, it would perhaps behove her many critics to re-evaluate their views about her perceived shortcomings.
The distressing scenes that unfolded early in her second-round match against Karolina Muchova, when she became visibly distressed after spotting her ‘stalker’ in the stands, were weeks in the making.
‘This man followed her to Singapore, to Abu Dhabi, where I was with her, again in Doha, now in Dubai, and we noticed him,’ said her former Roman Kelecic, who has been working with Raducanu recently.
‘Initially, we thought he was a fan, an admirer, because Emma is a really big tennis star with a huge fan base. Until he got physically close to her, started having contact in the form of selfies, hugging”
It was nonetheless not until Monday, when the man came up to Raducanu in a tournament restaurant, that it became apparent just how closely he had been watching the former British No 1.
‘That was the only moment in a month where I, the fitness coach, the security guard who was with us, was not with her at that moment,’ Kelecic told the Croatian outlet Net.
‘So that man was assessing the situation and looking for the best moment to get closer to her. He had a strategy that was terrifying, he thought everything through, calculated it.
‘It’s terrifying how much he, in essence, thought about it all and planned it. His strategy worked, and it was to get closer to her. That evening, we reported it immediately and again in the morning, when she was playing the match, because her safety is the most important thing to us.’
Raducanu was left distressed and in tears after she was repeatedly approached by a man at the Dubai Open
The former British No1 communicated with the umpire after she appeared to notice someone watching the match
The player fought on and returned to see out the match but was unable to battle back after losing the first set
In purely sporting terms, the incident could not have come at a worse moment for Raducanu.
Having claimed a notable win over Maria Sakkari in the opening round, breaking a sequence of four consecutive defeats – the worst run of her short career – she was hopeful of maintaining her momentum against Muchova, another former top-10 opponent. Instead, despite recovering to force a closer contest than initially seemed likely, she was defeated in straight sets.
What is truly shocking, however, is that the man was able to make it into the stands at all. Officials were fully briefed on the situation beforehand and a photo of the offender, who had taken Raducanu’s picture and left her a letter earlier in the week, was circulated among the tournament’s security staff.
Neither the WTA nor the event’s organisers apprehended him, and it was not until a tearful Raducanu was reduced to cowering behind the umpire’s chair two games into the match that the man was identified and ejected.
‘The entire security at the tournament has his photo and everyone knows who he is,’ said Kelecic. ‘The first game, two points gone, 15-15, Emma is on the other side of the court and she’s showing us something.
‘At that moment, we didn’t know what it was. Emma loses the first game and runs to us, crying, shouting, “Here he is, here he is, here he is.”‘
Raducanu, who has since returned home, later thanked her 2.6-million strong Instagram following for their backing.
‘Thank you for the messages of support,’ she wrote beneath a picture of a cup of coffee and a copy of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. ‘Difficult experience yesterday but I’ll be okay and proud of how I came back and competed despite what happened at the start of the match.’
Raducanu broke her silence on the incident with an Instagram Story post on Wednesday
Raducanu has been targeted by unwanted and troubling attention from obsessive fans in past
Raducanu has been here before, of course.
In an unconnected case in 2022, a delivery driver from north-west London was given a five-year restraining order after repeatedly visiting Raducanu’s home. Her words then offer some insight into what she has been through in recent weeks.
‘I feel like my freedom has been taken away from me,’ said Raducanu. ‘I am constantly looking over my shoulder. I feel on edge and worried this could happen again.’
Now it has, Raducanu is doing her best to put on a brave face, changing her Instagram bio to the Latin phrase ‘ad astra per aspera’ – ‘through adversity to the stars’.
Yet the emotional toll of the episode seemed clear when she touched down at Heathrow airport on Friday. Tearfully reunited with her father, the mask she has worn so well in recent weeks finally slipped, the extent of the ordeal she has suffered laid bare.
