Emma Raducanu met her match against Kiwi qualifier Lulu Sun on Wimbledon’s Centre Court on Day 7 of the Championships, well-beaten, 6-2 5-7 6-2, by an opponent who is ranked 123 in the world. “It was a great match. I really dug deep to get the win. I really had to fight tooth and nail because she, obviously, is going to run for every ball and fight until the end. I’m just incredibly – I don’t even have the words right now. While walking through the Centre Court, I was just looking around and taking it all in for the first time. I’m just super happy to be able to play on this court in front of all of you. It’s just such an amazing experience for me.
The Raducanu who turned up on Sunday was not the same player that had performed so stunningly in her earlier rounds, when she had upset both Elise Mertens and Maria Sakkari, and this might have been attributable to worry over wrist-stiffness or the backlash over her pulling out of the highly-anticipated mixed doubles with Andy Murray, bringing the two-time Wimbledon champion’s career to a sudden end at SW19.
Last summer, Raducanu had surgery on both wrists and her ankle, and spent months rehabbing, only returning to the tour in January, so waking up with stiffness or pain would have been a real worry.
Raducanu insisted that she had no regrets about withdrawing from the mixed. “It was a very difficult decision,” Raducanu said after the defeat on Sunday. “Of course, I didn’t want to take his last match away from him. But, at the end of the day, I think a lot of the players in a similar situation would have done the same thing, prioritising their body. “I still stand by making the right call.”
All this is not to detract from the exemplary performance from New Zealand-born, Swiss-raised Lulu Sun, who looked comfortable on the grass in front of a crowd that favoured her opponent. Hardened by fighting her way through qualifying, and then upsetting Zheng Qinwen, the 8th seed from China in the 1st-round of the main draw, Sun was well on her way, the first woman from New Zealand to reach the 4th round at The Championships in the Open Era.
“I wasn’t expecting to be here at this stage, but I’ve just been playing match-by-match,” she said. “Yeah, here I am.
23-year old Sun, who was born in Te Anau in New Zealand’s south island to a Croatian father and a Chinese mother, says her family and the places they have lived have all contributed to the person she is today.
She has only officially represented New Zealand on tour since April this year, having previously played under the Swiss flag. The family having moved to Switzerland for her education when she was aged 5, and she is still based in Geneva when not travelling for her career.
Sun says her mother inspires competitiveness and discipline, her father channels a sense of calmness, and Switzerland brings out neutrality, while New Zealand encourages tapping into her sense of adventure. “I’m really happy to be able to have so many cultures and backgrounds with me even though, sometimes, I’m not, as I said before, 100% in each one,” Sun said. “It’s impossible to be, [but] I’m really grateful to be able to at least have some of it. “My mom, obviously, she’s very keen on education. She always told us that, yes, sports and whatever you dream of is important, but to get that education is important as well.”
Honouring those wishes, Sun headed to the US to further her studies while playing college tennis for the University of Texas, and graduating in 2022 with a BA in Political Science.
In 2021, she competed in the NCAA DI women’s tennis championship for UT Austin, clinching the match and winning the third NCAA championship for UT’s women’s tennis program alongside future WTA Top 50 player Peyton Stearns.
“I didn’t know going into college that [COVID-19] would happen,” recalled Sun. “I had an injury that year, and my mom, she was really worried. She was, like, ‘I don’t know when you’re going to do your exams, you have to focus on your studies a bit before you go 100% in tennis’. “I guess it was kind of luck, if you will, and timing.”
This all contributes to the fact that Sun was not intimidated in the slightest by the occasion on Sunday, as she made her way into the quarter-finals, her debut at Wimbledon getting better and better.
Raducanu was eyeing up a return to the Top 50 of the WTA Rankings after her impressive run at Wimbledon, but it is Sun who is now knocking on the door of a major rankings break-through after she won the battle of the underdogs on Centre Court.
The Kiwi left-hander came out with all guns blazing facing the British wild-card, who looked nervous at the start, and was broken twice at the beginning of the set to go 0-3 down. Although Raducanu restored one of the breaks in the next game, Sun maintained her advantage by breaking again to take the opener.
The second was played with fine margins as both saved multiple break points on serve until Raducanu finally grabbed one at the last to score the set’s only break, and send the contest into a decider.
After a lengthy bathroom break, Raducanu was serving the first game of the third when she slipped and suffered an apparent injury to her left leg, and possibly also her lower back, and took a medical timeout.
When she returned to the court, she drew herself up and fired an ace, but Sun eventually scored another service break to jump out to a 1-0 lead, which she immediately pushed to 2-0. Sun had regrouped well and did not provide Raducanu any space to play freely as the Kiwi held her serve in the next game, and went up 4-2, before dealing another blow to the Brit by breaking her yet again, aided by a Raducanu double-fault, and then served out the match in the next game to record a historic win after 2 hours and 50 minutes.
Sun was in tears after reaching her maiden Grand Slam quarter-final in just her 2nd Major appearance. The 23-year-old was joined in her emotional celebration by her mother and her elder sister, Phenomena Radovcic, also a professional tennis player, who were present in her player’s box on Centre Court.
Now Sun will meet Donna Vekic for a place in the Last 4, with her position in the live WTA rankings at No 53 after her win against Raducanu. Vekic propelled herself into the quarters of the grass-court Grand Slam for the first time in her career with an impressive 6-2 1-6 6-4 win over Spain’s Paula Badosa.
“To win and make quarters at Wimbledon, I feel like I’m living my dream,” the Croatian said afterwards. “So I’m just really happy.”
The 28-year-old and the former World No 2 proved their mettle by shaking off the rain delays and playing some of the best power tennis of the fortnight, particularly in the decider. It was Vekic who ended up the victor on Sunday, moving into her 3rd Grand Slam quarter-final.
