Emma Raducanu is not responsible for ‘ruining’ Andy Murray’s career swansong
Wimbledon is in full swing, but unlike in previous years, the nail-biting drama is taking place away from the tennis courts.
The 2024 season marks Andy Murray’s farewell, as the three-time Grand Slam winner is now hanging up his racket following a back injury. While he opted out of the men’s singles, he was knocked out of the men’s doubles tournament alongside brother Jamie, and was scheduled to play in the mixed double matches with rising star Emma Raducanu. However, Raducanu’s own injury fears meant she chose to pull out of their doubles match (which was scheduled a day before her women's singles match), effectively bringing down the curtain down on Murray’s career at SW19.
The backlash against 21-year-old Raducanu has been swift, with fans criticising the player for causing such an abrupt end to Murray’s swansong. As social media chatter began to reach fever pitch, Raducanu felt the need to defend herself against her detractors.
Speaking at a press conference, Raducanu insisted she “just had to put herself first” by focusing on the women’s single matches. “I didn’t want to take his last match away from him,” she said. “But at the end of the day I think a lot of the players in a similar situation would have done the same thing, prioritising their body.
“I don’t think I would have done it any other way. I think in this sport especially, as an individual, you have to make your own calls and prioritise yourself.”
That Raducanu felt the need to speak out is sad. Athletes at this level are already under huge amounts of pressure to perform – the last thing they need to be doing is defending themselves against faceless furore that manifests so easily in the social-media age.
Despite her tender age, Raducanu has already faced substantial criticism throughout her career. Following her record-breaking 2021 US Open win at the age of 18, and the numerous lucrative sponsorship deals that followed, critics have derided Raducanu for being “a millionaire one-hit wonder” for not immediately and continually replicating that level of success.
She previously faced criticism in 2021 for pulling out of Wimbledon after feeling the pressure “got a little much” (well-known champion of women’s rights Piers Morgan sent a barbed tweet telling the sports star to "toughen up"). Meanwhile, Raducanu was then disparaged early last year when she pulled out of a New Zealand match after twisting her ankle, with people pouring scorn over pictures of the player with tears pouring down her face. Strangely, no-one was so vocally critical of Carlos Alcaraz and his sponsorship deals after he appeared emotional following a similar injury earlier this year. Now, Raducanu is being criticised for wanting to avoid getting hurt altogether. It’s not so much a double-fault, but an out-and-out double standard.
It's of little surprise that Raducanu would want to play with caution, given her injury history. Those frowning that Raducanu’s complaints of a stiff wrist would do well to remember that she was forced to miss Wimbledon last year after having to have surgery on both wrists. And fundamentally, as un-British and, ironically, unsporting, as it sounds, tennis is about winning. As an elite athlete at the top of her game, Raducanu has every right to put her own career first; she is more than mere dressing for Murray’s final moments. It begs the question whether we would even be having this conversation if Murray had pulled out of the doubles match to focus on singles at the height of his career. We tend only to frown at ambition in sport when it is being exhibited by a woman.
Murray us understandably "devastated" that he has played his final match on home soil, but it’s unlikely he’d be the sort to hold Raducanu’s decision against her. The 37-year-old has always championed women in tennis throughout his career. In 2017, he famously corrected a journalist at Wimbledon who said Sam Querrey was "the first US player to reach a major semi-final since 2009" – Murray interjected with "male player". His vocality has been applauded by his fellow athletes; Serena Williams, who joined Murray for mixed doubles in 2019, described playing alongside him as “one of the highlights” of her life, adding that the Scot “had a special place in her heart” for always standing up for women.
After being knocked out of the men’s doubles, Murray still got his Wimbledon farewell on Centre Court; he was left looking visibly emotional after watching a video montage of his career after the match. It was a fitting end to a glorious, widely celebrated career. Raducanu, meanwhile, is just beginning, and has every right to focus on what’s most important to her. She’s there to win. Those being so critical of her choices need to ask why they’ve being quite so vocal.
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