John McEnroe has been a very vocal critic of Emma Raducanu but his intentions were never bad, it came from the POV of somebody who knew how hard it is.
Raducanu broke out in major fashion at an extremely young age and McEnroe understood that it's not going to be easy to follow that up with consistent play. He's been there and his comments were never that quite different from other tennis legends who were sceptical as well. Even so, he's always backed Raducanu as someone supremely talented and he believes she can win Wimbledon.
She's a supremely talented individual and has an excellent chance to make a good run. If she's physically fit, I'd be very surprised if she lost early, to think she can't win Wimbledon is ridiculous."
Raducanu has the whole nation's expectations on her shoulders and it's going to be really hard to satisfy them after she spoiled them at the US Open. She played fairly well at Wimbledon last year so she's good enough for a deep run. McEnroe understands all of that but he believes she'll handle it well.
Expectations go up greatly when you pull off something like that, and Emma did something no one in the history of tennis has done. I'm assuming expectations in Britain are pretty high, the change in her life is overwhelming, the scrutiny is a bit much at times, it's the same everywhere, not just Britain. The bigger you are, the harder you fall.
0 Comments