Sports
Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the teen stars of 2021 who are starting all over again
There may come a time when Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu are in the draw of a major tournament and one of their names does not immediately follow the other in the tennis consciousness.
Maybe, but not yet.
One of them has been grinding her way up and down and back up the ever-shifting ladder that is women’s professional tennis.
The other struggled for a year and a half to string wins together, then called it a season and had three surgeries — on each wrist and one of her ankles — on one grim day last spring. That was not long before the other one realized she needed to hit her own career restart button, too.
One is the daughter of finance executives, the product of a Chinese father and a Romanian mother, raised in Great Britain with plenty of advantages and the chance to choose among the finest universities had she gone down that path.
The other grew up in Canada and then on the hot hard courts of Florida, driven by desire and her father, a former Ecuadorian soccer player, to make a living with a tennis racket.
Other than being born in Canada nine weeks apart, Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez do not share much in common. They aren’t any more than professional acquaintances.
Inevitably, they will always be more than that and always be linked because of those magical two weeks a little more than two years ago, when they were still teenagers co-starring in the zaniest Grand Slam tennis tournament that will ever happen. When nearly three weeks of competition had ended, Raducanu, a relative unknown outside of Great Britain, had won 10 straight matches, including the qualifying tournament, and 20 straight sets, and defeated Fernandez, the world’s 73rd-ranked player but the second-most unlikely finalist that day, for the championship.
Raducanu celebrates her U.S. Open win, aged 18, in 2021 (Getty Images)
There has been plenty of frustration for both of them since. Hard losses and early-round exits, hard lessons about life in the spotlight, and strings of injuries that sometimes felt like they would never cease. Raducanu, especially, looked mostly miserable with each tournament and each loss, especially during the final months when she was playing in constant pain.
But here they are this week in Melbourne, into the second round on opposite sides of the draw, getting busy with the next phase of their tennis lives at an age when most players are still trying to get their teeth into the first one.
For Raducanu, 21, that meant a first-round win on Tuesday evening over the American veteran Shelby Rogers that was as solid as it needed to be. Rogers, 31, was searching for form after an injury-induced six-month layoff, but for long stretches, Raducanu showcased so much of the style that sent her to those lofty heights — the easy, deceptively fast movement, the low, whipping and curling power off the ground, even a feathery backhand drop shot and, most importantly, the ability to not beat herself with careless errors.
The final score was 6-3, 6-2 and it wasn’t really that close. More of that and Raducanu will be ranked much higher than 296th in the world before long.
“All aspects of my life are calming down and settled,” Raducanu said. “When you come back after eight months, have experienced three surgeries, you’re just really grateful to move freely.”
Raducanu is fit again after three surgeries (James D Morgan/Getty Images)
This all went down a couple of days after Fernandez won one of the first matches of the tournament, a straight-sets win over Sara Bejlek of the Czech Republic. Sure, Bejlek was just a 17-year-old qualifier, but this was a different Fernandez who wasn’t just staying in points and chasing down balls in the corners like she always has, but also sprinting to the net to finish them off like she rarely has before.
“I can’t always be a grinder or just a returner,” Fernandez said as she sat in a soft chair in a Melbourne Park corridor a little while after her match. “Everybody on tour is a grinder. You see the top players, they run for every ball.”
For Fernandez, the restart began just after the French Open following her three-set loss in the second round, a winnable match against world No 127 Clara Tauson of Denmark. Even as Fernandez and Taylor Townsend cruised into the doubles final at Roland Garros, her father suggested they have a formal sit-down to discuss her future. Her singles ranking was about to drop to 95, her lowest since 2020.
He told her she could listen to 100 per cent of what he was going to say and finish the season in the top 20, or less than 100 per cent and maybe finish in the top 40.
“Of course, I didn’t listen to him 100 per cent,” she said. “That comes with maturity and I own up to it.”
Fernandez is back on the up (Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
But she did listen to a lot of what he told her and signed on to his plan to start from scratch with a mini-pre-season in the weeks leading up to Wimbledon, leaving the rackets on the side of the court at times and focusing on her fitness. She had been one of the quickest players in the game but had somehow become slower, or the game had got quicker, with women moving forward more or playing drop shots and taking time away from her.
She needed to be faster for longer and the only way to do that was to build endurance.
“You kind of see Novak Djokovic every single year, he’s trying to improve something,” Fernandez, who faces the American Alycia Parks in the second round, said. “He changed his whole diet. He started doing yoga. It’s very basic. The fundamentals of an athlete’s body. We wanted to see what can we improve in my fitness because if my fitness level is high and I’m confident with that, my game will follow afterwards.”
Her summer, which included another mini-pre-season after Wimbledon, was up and down, including a first-round loss in the U.S. Open. In September, she was playing qualifying matches, but in October, she won the Hong Kong Open, then made the semi-finals of the Jiangxi Open.
It’s taken a while, but Fernandez, 21, is finally beginning to experience all the attention and the crowds that have followed her since the 2021 U.S. Open as support rather than pressure.
“It just took time to understand what was happening,” she said, “to understand what I was feeling and work through that… just find ways to get back to the little girl who would just want to get on court and to hit and hit and have fun and put on a show for everybody.”
Raducanu wants to do that, too. She said she was shocked to see thousands of fans packing the cozy 1573 Arena when she walked onto the court. She tried not to focus on a potential result, which just three matches into her comeback could go either way, and that’s going to have to be her life for now.
“The difference between me losing first round or doing really well at a tournament is really, really slim,” she said. “It’s just in the way that I move, in the way I do things physically. Not being so drastic, I would say, because I know it’s not far away at all. The more I practice consistently, it will come up.”
She lingered long after the win, soaking in the adulation, signing autographs and posing for selfies all around the stadium, her restart officially now underway. Next up for Raducanu is a second round against China’s Yafan Wang.
“The time away made me very hungry,” Raducanu said. “I’m just happy to be healthy again and pain-free.”
(Top photo: James D Morgan/Getty Images)
Sports
It’s love, set and match: Tennis icon Venus Williams weds actor, model partner in Florida
Tennis legend Venus Williams wed Danish model and actor Andrea Preti over the weekend in Florida, the new bride announced in a shared post.
An Instagram post from Vogue Magazine’s Weddings section announced the nuptials, with the message garnering more than 30,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon.
“We all love each other so much,” Williams, 45, said in the Vogue post. “It was just the happiest, most beautiful, sweetest day.”
The post was scant on details other than the event took place over five days in and around the couple’s home in Palm Beach Gardens.
An email for comment to representatives for Williams and Preti, 37, was not immediately returned.
The couple met at 2024 Milan Fashion Week and began texting shortly after, according to Vogue.
The couple eventually became engaged on Jan. 31 in Tuscany, according to Vogue. That detail was confirmed in July during what was a historic month for Williams.
The Compton native defeated 23-year-old Peyton Sterns 6-3, 6-4 in the first round action of the D.C. Open after a 16-month hiatus from singles matches.
In victory, Williams became the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match, trailing only fellow legend Martina Navratilova, who was 47 when she won in 2004.
“Yes, my fiance is here, and he really encouraged me to keep playing,” Williams told the Tennis Channel’s Rennae Stubbs in a post-match interview. “There were so many times where I just wanted to coast and kind of chill. … He encouraged me to get through this, and it’s wonderful [for him] to be here. He’s never seen me play.”
Preti has written, acted and directed in a handful of films, primarily in Italy.
The wedding was the second for the couple, who also held a ceremony in Italy in September.
Sports
Lindsey Vonn qualifies for fifth Winter Olympics
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As Philip Rivers has shown he could still tear up the NFL at age 44, American Olympic legend Lindsey Vonn has also proven that age is just a number.
Vonn, 41, qualified for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, Team USA announced on Tuesday. It will be the fifth Winter Olympics that she competes in.
United States’ Lindsey Vonn reacts at the finish area of an alpine ski, women’s World Cup downhill, in Val D’Isere, France, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)
Vonn had an impressive run at the World Cup in France over the weekend. She was third in super-G, hitting a high speed of 71 mph. It was her second consecutive podium finish after she was third in downhill. It was the 142nd podium finish in her World Cup career.
“I am honored to be able to represent my country one more time, in my 5th and final Olympics!” she wrote in a post on Instagram. “When I made the decision to return to ski racing, I always had one eye on Cortina because it’s a place that is very, very special to me. Although I can’t guarantee any outcomes, I can guarantee that I will give my absolute best every time l kick out of the starting gate. No matter how these games end up, I feel like I’ve already won.
US OLYMPIANS MADISON CHOCK, EVAN BATES SEND MESSAGE TO OPPONENT WHO TOOK THEIR GOLD BEFORE DISQUALIFICATION
United States’ Lindsey Vonn celebrates on the podium after taking third place in an alpine ski, women’s World Cup downhill, in Val D’Isere, France, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)
“I am grateful for how the season has gone so far, but I am just getting started. See you in Cortina!”
Vonn has already put together an enviable career in skiing.
She won a gold medal in the 2010 Vancouver Games and two bronze medals in Pyeongchang in 2018. She’s also taken home two gold, three silver and two bronze medals in the World Championships.
The Minnesota native also has 83 World Cup wins and several International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) Crystal Globes.
Notably, she’s back competing for gold after being away from the sport for five years.
Austria’s Cornelia Huetter, left, winner of an alpine ski, women’s World Cup downhill, celebrates on the podium with second-placed Germany’s Kira Weidle Winkelmann, left, and third-placed United States’ Lindsey Vonn, in Val D’Isere, France, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Pier Marco Tacca)
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The Winter Olympics will begin on Feb. 6 and run through Feb. 22.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Sports
Nearly a century ago, the first World Cup went off with many hitches
Next summer’s World Cup will be the largest, most complex and most lucrative sporting event in history, with 48 teams playing 104 games in three countries. The tournament is expected to draw a global TV audience of nearly 5 billion and FIFA, the event’s organizer, is hoping for revenues of between $10 billion-$14 billion — which is why lower-bowl tickets for Iran-New Zealand at SoFi Stadium cost nearly $700.
All that seemed unlikely after the first tournament in 1930, when the idea of a soccer World Cup was nearly killed in the cradle, the victim from lack of planning, lack of money and lack of interest. That the competition survived, much less thrived, is nothing short of a miracle, says English writer and podcaster Jonathan Wilson, author of the deeply researched “The Power and Glory: The History of the World Cup.”
“1930, it’s incredibly amateurish in many ways,” Wilson said. “It’s got that sort of almost like a school sports day feel to it.”
Only 13 countries took part in the first tournament; it was supposed to be 16 but the Egyptian team missed its boat to Uruguay while Japan and Siam (now Thailand) couldn’t afford the travel costs and pulled out. England, meanwhile, not only refused to play, but the British press ignored the event, as did much of Europe.
That seemed like a wise decision at the time since the first two matches of the inaugural tournament were affected by snow, with one of the opening games drawing just 4,444 fans. The smallest crowd in World Cup history, estimated at about 300, showed up for another first-round game between Romania and Peru and the TV audience … well, there was none since TV had yet to be invented.
The officiating was beyond suspect — Romania’s manager, Constantin Radulescu, also worked two games as a linesman — and the U.S. trainer, Jack Coll, had to be stretchered off the field during his team’s semifinal — yes, the U.S. made the semifinals! — with Argentina when he lost consciousness after inhaling the fumes from a bottle of chloroform that shattered in his pocket.
In another game, the penalty spots were mistakenly marked 16 yards from goal instead of the regulation 12 — and nobody noticed.
“Some of the details don’t make sense,” Wilson said. “The whole thing is so sort of low grade compared to today.”
When Argentine captain Nolo Ferreira left the tournament and returned home to take his law exams his replacement, Guillermo Stábile, scored a tournament-high eight goals in four games — then never played for the national team again (although he did coach it, leading the La Albiceleste to six South American titles and the 1958 World Cup).
Given the farcical nature of the 1930 World Cup, the tournament probably should have ended right there. Instead, 1930 has become the foundation on which next year’s competition was built.
The origins of the tournament, however, actually make sense. Before 1930, FIFA recognized the winner of the Olympic competition as the world champion. But that event was for amateurs, a point on which the International Olympic Committee would not budge.
With professional soccer growing in popularity, FIFA decided to stage its own breakaway event and play it in Uruguay, the country that had won the last two Olympic titles.
Argentina’s goalkeeper can’t stop a shot by Uruguay during the 1930 World Cup final against Argentina in Montevideo, Uruguay.
(Associated Press)
That quickly proved to be a big mistake. The growing effects of the Great Depression left many countries unable to afford the long, slow steamship trip to South America. The first tournament was open to any country that wanted to play, yet two months before the first game no European teams had agreed to come.
“It was taken very seriously by Uruguay and Argentina,” Wilson said, but not by many others.
That changed shortly after Romania’s King Carol II, who ascended to the throne in a coup that deposed his son, personally selected his country’s World Cup roster and sent it on its way. France quickly agreed to go too, entering a makeshift team under pressure from FIFA president Jules Rimet, a Frenchman. Belgium also buckled under FIFA pressure and all three teams boarded the same ship for the trip to Uruguay, working out together on the 15-day voyage aboard the SS Conte Verde, an Italian ocean liner.
“Even the four European nations who go it’s not entirely clear how seriously they took it,” Wilson said. “The French and Romanians, they kept diaries. They seem to have regarded this as a laugh. We’ll try to win but it doesn’t really matter.”
Things didn’t really get loony until the tournament began. The Bolivian team, for example, played in berets, as did an Argentine midfielder, while the 15 referees who worked the games, some of whom had traveled and socialized with the players on the long boat ride from Europe, dressed formally in knickers, long-sleeve shirts, blazers and ties.
The well-dressed officials spent much of the tournament working with police to break up fights; play was so violent at least two players sustained broken legs and the U.S.-Argentina semifinal descended into a full-out brawl, with one American having four teeth knocked out and another hospitalized with injuries to his stomach.
The tournament finally finished with the hosts beating Argentina 4-2, after which the Argentines broke off diplomatic relations with their neighbor and an angry mob in Buenos Aires stoned the Uruguayan embassy.
Uraguay’s team before the 1930 World Cup final against Argentina.
(Keystone / Getty Images)
Argentina’s soccer team before preparing for the 1930 World Cup final.
(Associated Press)
“It ended,” Wilson said of the tournament, “with everybody sort of fighting each other.”
Few disagreed with the Argentine magazine El Gráfico, which seemed to predict there was little future for the fledgling event. “The World Cup is over,” it wrote. “The development of this competition brought not only an unpleasant atmosphere, but also an ungrateful one.”
Yet nearly a century later, the World Cup is still here. And that, too, was foretold in 1930 in the story of Romanian midfielder Alfred Eisenbeisser (who was also known as Fredi Fieraru because, why not?).
On the journey home from the first World Cup, Eisenbeisser contracted pneumonia and a priest was called to administer the last rites. The ship eventually docked in Genoa and he was taken to a sanatorium while the rest of the team continued on to Romania.
Assuming her son had perished in Italy, Eisenbeisser’s mother arranged a wake — only to have her son stroll into the ceremony very much alive, causing the woman to faint. Eisenbeisser would play 12 more years of professional soccer and compete in figure skating in the 1936 Winter Olympics, where he finished 13th in the pairs competition.
Turns out the reports of Eisenbeisser’s demise, like those of the World Cup, were greatly exaggerated.
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
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