Sporting life – 1

The Girl and I watched the other day the extraordinary denouement of the US Open women’s tennis championship from Flushing Meadows, New York.

In the unlikely eventuality that any gentle reader might somehow have remained unaware of the details of this unprecedented match – here they are:

• The final was between two teenagers – nineteen year old Canadian Leylah Fernandez and eighteen year old Brit Emma Raducanu.
• Neither girl had been seeded and both had had remarkable and unexpected runs to the final.
• The winner – Emma Raducanu – is the youngest Briton to win a Grand Slam title.
• She is also the first British winner of the women’s US Open since Virginia Wade (who was in the crowd) won at Flushing Meadows back in 1968.
• Ms Raducanu is the first woman or man ever to win a Grand Slam title having started as a qualifier.
• She is the youngest Slam winner since Maria Sharapova in 2004 and the first woman to win without dropping a set since Serena Williams in 2014.
• Both young ladies appeared to be supremely self-assured and nerveless throughout. Oh to be so at any age – let alone when still in one’s teens.

The Girl had, naturally, been rooting for Leylah Fernandez and the knowledge that Emma Raducanu was actually born in Toronto and moved with her parents to the UK when she was two years old didn’t really help much. For both Brits and Canadians, however, the current plethora of sporting talent on show from both nations is extremely pleasing and its like has not been seen since eons passed.

Hearty congratulations to both youngsters – but in particular to Ms Raducanu who, in addition to becoming US Open champion, earned herself two good passes in her A Levels a couple of months back (goodness knows how she found the time!). It think it is fair to say that neither of the girl’s lives will be the same again.

Writing about this event reminds me that I have not posted anything at all to this journal on the subject of sport for some considerable time – the which is all the more peculiar given that there has been a fair bit of it on offer this summer.

I feel that a brief catch-up and explanation is due and promise same for the very next posting (or one shortly thereafter should other ‘stuff’ intervene).