"She is the champ!" - Nick Kyrgios expresses support for Emma Raducanu at Australian Open 2022
Teen sensation Emma Raducanu has a new fan in tennis' wild child Nick Kyrgios, who became the latest to hop on the 19-year-old's bandwagon.
Raducanu began her first Australian Open campaign in fine fashion on Tuesday, beating former US Open champion Sloane Stephens in three sets. The teenager will next face Montenegro's Danka Kovinic for a place in the third round in Melbourne on Thursday.
Raducanu has struggled for form since winning the 2021 US Open, having failed to win more than two matches on the trot. The Brit, however, will be eager to turn her fortunes around at this year's Melbourne Slam.
In that context, Nick Kyrgios went on to extend his support for the teenager on Twitter. The Aussie, who has been posing as a good samaritan lately, quote-tweeted a snippet from the young Brit's first-round press conference with a cheery caption.
"She is the champ!!!!" read Nick Kyrgios' tweet.
She is the champ!!!! twitter.com/australianopen…
In the press conference, Raducanu asserted that she thoroughly enjoyed the support of local fans during her first-round outing at Margaret Court Arena. She also insisted that it was the fans who helped her loosen up and play an aggressive brand of tennis.
"I definitely wanted to go out there and start playing aggressively and start putting my game on the court. I felt that I was actually just really enjoying my time here, especially going out to practice earlier."
"I had a quite a few people watching, I was really enjoying that, and I think the crowd that stayed pretty late, we were having a good time. So I was feeding off that for sure," she said.
Emma Raducanu could face childhood idol Simona Halep in the third round of the 2022 Australian Open
If Raducanu manages to beat Kovinic on Thursday, she could face former World No. 1 Simona Halep for a place in the second week of the Melbourne Slam. The match-up will probably be daunting for the youngster, who shares Romanian roots with Halep.
Halep, meanwhile, is in top form right now. The World No. 15 won her first title in 16 months at the Melbourne Summer Set and comprehensively beat Magdalena Frech in her first-round match on Tuesday.
It should also be noted that Halep happens to be the young Brit's childhood idol. The duo could have faced off for the first time ever in the semifinals of last year's Transylvania Open. Unfortunately, the 19-year-old lost in the last eight to Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk.