Emma Raducanu has made history as the first woman to qualify for the finals at the US Open

This year’s U.S. Open featured a competitor who is unlikely to appear in the women’s singles draw, as 18-year-old Emma Raducanu from Great Britain has had a great career in the tournament. The race continued on Wednesday with the grief of an Olympic champion and a historic milestone in the Open era.

Just two months after making her Wimbledon Grand Slam standings, Emma Raducanu advanced to the U.S. Open finals on Wednesday with a stunning victory over Belinda Bencic. Raducanu beat Bencic 6-3, 6-4, the world’s 11th-ranked player and the 2020 Olympic gold medalist.

With her victory, Raducanu has become the first woman to qualify for the US Open finals since 1968. She is the fourth-placed women to reach the finals of a Grand Slam event, joining Christine Dorey (1978 Australian Open), Alexandra Stevenson (1999 Wimbledon) and Nadia Podoroska (2020 French Open).

“It was 0-30 in my last service games, so the hold was pretty big, it was one point at a time and I was trying to focus on what I could control,” Raducanu said. he told reporters after the match. “Belinda was going to fight to the end, but I’m very happy to have overcome that.”

In addition to making history as a women’s qualifier, Raducanu is also the third woman to be ranked in the top 100 in the world, having made it to the finals of the U.S. Open. Raducanu has joined Billie Jean King (1979) and Kim Clijsters (2009), the latter of whom has won the championship.

With Raducanu’s victory, they will be teenagers in two games of Thursday’s finals, as they will face 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez Aryna Sabalenka of Canada in No. 2 in the other finals. Raducanu will face Maria Sakkari – Karolína Plisková in the quarter-finals