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Shame on you Emma Raducanu for abandoning your mentor Andy Murray.
Can the millions of fans who tuned in to watch Raducanu play Lulu Sun on Sunday on Centre Court be forgiven a moment of schadenfreude as the rookie ranked 123 trounced our £10 million golden girl?
Was it just me who noticed the cheers for Emma were often eclipsed by those for the unknown Lulu?
And was the muted applause solely due to the fact that the New Zealander was a brilliant tennis player who hit 52 stellar winners to Emma’s 19, or down to the way Emma had treated our undisputed Wimbledon champion Andy Murray.
Having gleefully agreed to partner Andy in the mixed doubles on Saturday – games which would have been his final historic appearance at Wimbledon before he retired – she pulled out at the last minute, denying our champion his last farewell, and leaving Andy reportedly ‘absolutely devastated’.
Raducanu had cited a minor injury for quitting the mixed doubles, but seasoned commentators could see ‘no signs of the right wrist stiffness’ on Centre Court on Sunday.
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In comments completely tone-deaf to the public mood, Emma acknowledged her withdrawal had cast ‘a bit of a cloud’ over proceedings, but defiantly insisted she had ‘no regrets’, adding: ‘I just had to put myself first.’
The same way she prioritised herself and not her country by pulling out of the Olympics three weeks ago, justifying the move by saying: ‘Not a diva in any way. I’m very single minded and I do things my own way and in my own time whenever I want.’
Was there not something quite heartless in defending her mixed doubles no-show with the words: ‘I have to prioritise myself, my singles and my body. I didn’t want to take his last match away from him [Andy], but I think a lot of players in a similar situation would have done the same thing.’
But Andy is not just any other player, is he Emma. He has been your loyal friend, cheerleader and mentor for many years. You first met at his mum Judy’s under-10s tennis training camp when you were just nine years old and, even at that young age, she spotted your talent.
Judy said of that first meeting: ‘What impressed me then was she asked a lot of questions, she was very smart and very good.’
Andy took on the baton in 2019 when Emma won the Prime Video Future Talent Award, alongside the current British male number one Jack Draper. For Emma, this not only came with a then unheard of £60,000 in funding over two years, but the real prize: the mentorship of Andy Murray, who was already our leading tennis star.
Knowing all this, is it any wonder that the fiercely protective Judy Murray responded to Emma’s late withdrawal with a single word: ‘Astonishing’. A feeling millions of us shared.
She later said it was meant as sarcasm but few believed that she, like Andy, must have felt utterly betrayed by the self-centredness of the player they had both nurtured as a child.
