Emma Raducanu's US Open triumph is part superhero blockbuster, part feel-good romcom, and part inspiring documentary
"Do you bleed?" goes one of the more cheesy lines from recent pop culture, to suggest just how invulnerable a certain superhero is. It's tempting to ask whether Emma Raducanu's opponents had the same question pop up in their heads over the past fortnight.
Raducanu was a superhero in New York alright. She won 20 consecutive sets (starting from qualifying), never dropped more than five games in a set (never more than four in the main draw), and treated every player that came her way like a glorified junior. Never mind that she herself was plying her trade on the junior circuit less than a year ago.
The 18-year-old is the first qualifier to ever win a Slam, male or female. She is also the first player ever to win a Major trophy before winning a tour-level match, as ridiculous as that sounds. You probably know some of the other feats she achieved - lowest-ranked Slam champion, youngest Slam champion since Maria Sharapova in 2004, first female British champion in 44 years.
And to think that she did it all with the composure and dominance of a seasoned pro. In fact, it wasn't until the very last hurdle - serving for the championship at 6-4, 5-3 against Leylah Fernandez in the final - that her first signs of vulnerability came to the fore.
Raducanu hit a couple of nervy serves and forehands in that pivotal game, and at 30-30 she was tugged from side to side by some heavy Fernandez groundstrokes. The Brit scraped her knee as she tried to retrieve one particularly tough ball, and after she lost the point (to go break point down) everyone realized she was bleeding.
So yes, this particular superhero did bleed. And she did have to take a medical timeout at a very untimely juncture of the match, much to the frustration of her opponent. Fernandez tried arguing with the umpire about how a break at that stage could have a serious effect on the momentum of the match, but the rule was clear: if a player starts bleeding, you have to stop and get it attended to.
During her post-match press conference, Fernandez downplayed the incident and admitted that she didn't know the full extent of Raducanu's injury.
"I honestly did not know what was happening with Emma," the Canadian said. "I didn't know how serious her fall was, so that's why I went to see the official and ask her about it. You know what, it just happened in the heat of the moment. It was just too bad that it happened in that specific moment with me, with the momentum. But it's sports, it's tennis. Just got to move on."
Raducanu on her part didn't even want to get her knee fixed at that stage, since she wasn't sure whether she'd herself be able to reset after the pause and save the break point.
"I didn't actually want to stop because I thought it would disrupt my rhythm, seeing as I was going to be serving 30-40, and to have such a long break after a point," Raducanu said. "But I couldn't play on. I wasn't allowed to because my knee was, like, gushing with blood. The chair umpire said I needed to get it treated right away."
The Brit did save that first break point, but promptly went down another one. The nerves of closing out such a big match - or any nerves at all, really - had finally made their appearance. So how did she respond?
By sending down a couple of big serves and playing some of her most assertive tennis of the fortnight, that's how. Raducanu crunched a full-blooded down-the-line backhand to elicit an error and get to match point, and followed that up by hitting an ace out wide to finish the job.
Yes, a young female player actually won the first big title of her career with an ace. Who said the serve is not a weapon on the WTA tour? Emma Raducanu has made us rethink quite a few axioms that we mistakenly thought were true about our sport.
There's also the nature of the Brit's game that is so striking. We have been several teen prodigies in tennis before, right from Tracy Austin and Monica Seles to Maria Sharapova and Iga Swiatek. But how many of them looked so complete the very first time they appeared on the big stage?
Raducanu has a good serve, an accurate forehand, a terrific backhand, a lethal return of serve, and some very nifty footwork and defense. She is also - and many would scarcely be able to believe this - quite comfortable in the forecourt.
It does remain to be seen whether all of these elements will hold up when she goes up against the heaviest hitters or speediest defenders of the tour. But in the face of the opponents Raducanu faced in New York, there wasn't a single weakness that could be exploited.
There's a reason she won all 10 matches in such dominant fashion. None of her results was a fluke or a coincidence.
Emma Raducanu - a wholesome representation of everything that's good in this world
As you've probably heard, while Emma Raducanu represents Great Britain in tennis, she is also part-Chinese, part-Romanian and part-Canadian. Raducanu was born in Canada to a Chinese mother and Romanian father, and she moved to the UK when she was two.
The British, of course, fully consider her as one of their own. Her success has been passionately celebrated by not just the who's-who of British tennis (most prominently the Murrays), but also by the royal family itself.
At the same time, Emma Raducanu is also being feted by Romanians, and Chinese, and Canadians. She is a little bit of every region in the world (not unlike the previous breakout women's star Naomi Osaka), and one of the most picture-perfect faces of the idea of a global village.
That Raducanu regularly makes it a point to mention her Chinese (and also Romanian) roots is telling. The 18-year-old considers Li Na, the only singles Chinese Slam champion in history, as her idol - which also perhaps explains her smooth ball-striking and exquisite timing.
"Yeah, I think for me having a Chinese mom, she definitely instilled from a young age hard work, discipline," Raducanu had said after her semifinal win on Thursday. "I think for me when I was younger I would take a lot of inspiration from Li Na, even now just the way she was such a fierce competitor...I remember watching her play Schiavone in the French Open final. That was definitely a long, tough match. But the amount of mental strength and resilience she showed, that match still sticks in my head today."
Just like Li, the Brit has now won a Slam title on the back of a fast-paced, offensive game that is also incredibly easy on the eye. And just like the 2011 Roland Garros champion, Raducanu is a reminder that irresistible talent can come from anywhere.
The 18-year-old's meteoric rise - coupled with her likable personality, giggly press conferences and innocent charm - has united the tennis fandom in a way rarely seen before. There's nothing about her that can possibly be hated by anyone; she is basically the tennis version of Julie Andrews.
As you've probably heard, Novak Djokovic is currently on the cusp of creating unheard-of history. But Emma Raducanu, with her on-court brilliance and on-court likability, has somehow managed to become the joint biggest story of the tournament.
Before the start of the US Open, I didn't think anything could possibly match Djokovic's march to immortality. But then again, I also didn't think a player ranked outside the top 300 at the start of the year could improve so dramatically in just a few months that she'd end up winning the last Major of the year. And I definitely didn't think a teenager could win the US Open - or any Slam, really - without dropping more than four games in any set.
There have been surprise runs before in the women's game; Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon 2013, Flavia Pennetta at the US Open 2015 and Monica Puig at the 2016 Rio Olympics immediately come to mind. But at least with those runs, we knew the player's name six months (or six years) before they won the title.
Emma Raducanu, on the other hand, has literally come out of nowhere. She wasn't the most talked-about junior player, so even when she reached the Wimbledon fourth round it was largely considered a one-off. That she made more headlines for her unfortunate collapse in the fourth round at SW19 than for her tennis, was an indication of just how unlikely she was to become a Slam champion any time soon.
Sure, the British media did their bit to bring the hype, notwithstanding the despicable attacks on her by a certain Piers Morgan. But the 18-year-old has somehow exceeded the hype; even the notoriously partisan and excitable British media didn't consider her a potential US Open champion.
Chalk that up as another first in the history of sports. A player living up to British media hype, and even going beyond? Get out of here!
The story of Raducanu's run through the New York draw will be told for many years and decades to come. And the best part is that with every re-telling, you'd be hard-pressed to prevent a smile from creeping up on your face.
Emma Raducanu was a superhero at the 2021 US Open, and she was also an inspiration for millions of young Asian girls, Romanian girls and immigrants. Perhaps most importantly though, she was a wholesome, feel-good winner that made us feel 2021 wasn't all that soul-sucking after all.