‘I could barely breathe’: Emma Raducanu recounts stalker incident in Dubai Championships | Tennis News
Emma Raducanu said that she struggled to breathe after she spotted the man who was ‘fixated’ on her during a match. The incident had happened in last month’s Dubai Championships when the 2021 US Open winner was left dressed the presence of the man in the stand, leading to him getting ejected.
“I was obviously very draught,” Raducanu told British reporters at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, her first tournament since the incident.
“I saw him in the first game of the match and I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to finish’. I literally couldn’t see the ball through tears. I could barely breathe. I was like, I need to just take a breather here It was a very emotional time. After the match I did break down in tears, but not necessarily because I lost,” she added.
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Last week Raducanu was offered five extra security guards in Indian Wells, the telegraph.co.uk had reported. The person in-charge of security at Indian Wells is Bob Campbell, a former secret service agent, who has been on the tour since 2013.
The stalker had first approached Raducanu at a cafe before being seen in the spectator stands. During the unscheduled break in the match, opponent Karolina Muchova walked over to offer Raducanu support. Raducanu, who was still a teenager in 2022 when a man in Britain was convicted of stalking her, returned to play and eventually lost 7-6 (6), 6-4 to Muchova.
In 2022, an obsessive fan of Raducanu was given a restraining order after coming to her house three times.
Raducanu will face Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima, who is ranked three places above her at 52nd in the world, in the first round in California on Thursday. The winner is guaranteed to face third-seeded Coco Gauff, with the top 32 players all receiving es through to the second round.
(With agency inputs)
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