Emma Raducanu and the unstoppable rise of women in sport
Who’d have thought it? A final between two teenage girls, Britain’s Emma Raducanu and Canada’s Leylah Fernandez is the highlight of this year’s US championships and will be so whether Novak Djokovic wins his Grand Slam or not. Move over, guys. Give way to the girls.
In 1972, the United Nations decreed that there should be an International Women’s Year, and 1975 was designated as the first one. For many women, it must have seemed to mark a significant advance. For many men, I expect, it came with a slightly guilty feeling; it probably seemed a bit quaint or unnecessary. Well, it was still a man’s world then, even though we British had a queen and in 1975 the Tory Party had, to its considerable surprise, found itself with a woman leader. This was all the more remarkable if you remember that Margaret Thatcher was elected Leader by only her fellow Tory MPs, almost all of them men.
Sport was a man’s world too. Not all of it, of course. Female Olympic Gold Medalists might become household names, especially if they were pretty. Women competed on equal terms with men in some equestrian events – show-jumping and eventing, for instance. Ladies Champions at Wimbledon had been celebrities since Suzanne Lenglen dominated women’s tennis immediately after the First World War. But by the 1970s, for citizens of the worldwide Republic of Sport, women were still undeniably second-class citizens.
Billie-Jean King has reminded us of this in her new autobiography. When she led the way in setting up a women’s professional tour (the Virginia Slims), she was met with contemptuous incredulity. Who would pay to watch a women’s tournament circuit? That sneer now seems as distant as a sports event sponsored by a tobacco company. Note to the young: Virginia Slims are – or were – cigarettes. They were marketed as a woman’s smoke, advertised with a catchy lyric: “You’ve come a long long way, baby/ To get where you’ve got to today./ You’ve got your own cigarette now, baby/ You’ve come a long long way.”
Well, women’s sport has come a much longer way since then too. Indeed 2021 might be named International Women’s Sport Year. The seeds were sown long ago; flowers are now in glorious bloom. Who would have thought when, say, we entered this century that there would be flourishing leagues and cups – even World Cups – for Women’s Football and Women’s Rugby, or that great football clubs like Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal would field women’s teams? Would we have thought that their matches would be shown on television, even in prime time, and would be attracting male, as well as female, fans?
Or take cricket. However dim a view old codgers like me may take of the English and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) new darling, The Hundred, and its possible consequences for the English first-class county game, there can be no doubt that it has done wonders for the women’s game, played in front of large crowds in a full stadium and featured on the BBC as well as SKY.
A sport needs exposure and it needs stars. Hence the delight aroused by the scarcely heralded emergence of 18-year-old Emma Raducanu. She shone at Wimbledon and she has shone still more brightly at Flushing Meadow in New York, playing the US Open final tomorrow. She is probably already a candidate for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) because she is personable and bright (she achieved an A* in A-Level Maths between tournaments) as well as a star on the court, the best thing to have happened to British tennis since Andy Murray first came on the scene.
Of course, there are rivals for that SPOTY title, chief among them the jockey Rachel Blackmore. It’s not so long since the Racing authorities reluctantly permitted women to ride against men on the Flat and over jumps but this year Rachel Blackmore has made their long reluctance to permit equality look utterly ridiculous. She was the leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival and then, to cap a remarkable season, became the first woman to ride the winner of the Grand National. Steeplechasing too tough for women? Come off it.
Later this month the multi-millionaires of Golf will compete for what has been the greatest team event in the game. I’ve no doubt the Ryder Cup will be as gripping as it always is. But can it match last weekend’s Solheim Cup, the equivalent Europe vs USA encounter? The star of the winning European team was a young Irishwoman Leona Maguire, who in her first Solheim Cup was the only player in the European team to play all five matches (two foursomes, two four-balls and the singles) and come away with 4 ½ points. Move over, Rory McIlroy. Make way for Leona.
But the other star was the European non-playing captain, North Berwick’s Catriona Matthew, leading the European team to victory for the second time. Of course, it is usual for a none-playing captain to be praised for her management, her selection of pairings and her order of play, but there was one incident that marked out her performance for me. At the thirteenth hole on one of the Saturday four-balls, the American Nelly Korda’s putt was left trembling on the edge of the hole. Europe’s Magdalena Sagstrom picked it up and tossed it to the American, conceding that the next putt would obviously go in. Her partner then holed her putt to halve the hole. But the American Rules Official stepped in to judge that Sagstrom has picked up the American ball too quickly and it might have dropped into the hall in the next three seconds, and so awarded the hole to the USA. Sagstrom has no doubt that that first putt was never going to drop. The Americans won the match by one hole. One can only too easily imagine the cry-baby fuss that certain American males stars might have made if in Sagstrom’s or Matthews’ position, as the European captain Matthews made no fuss at all, only remarking that the judgement “kind of mars a great day of golf”. That showed class. but she did more than that. She put out Sagstrom first to lead the European team in the Singles. Her trust was rewarded. Sagstrom won the match.
That Solheim Cup was one of the highlights of the sporting year. Twenty or thirty years ago it would probably have received little notice. Next time round it will be matching the Ryder Cup for attention, soon perhaps more than matching it. All over the sporting landscape that impudent question put to Billie-Jean King, half a century ago, belongs to Dodo Land. Nothing proves this more than the rise of Emma Raducanu, all the more so because it was so unexpected. For years the question has been “what is there for British tennis after Andy Murray?” Now, we have the answer, and it’s a very young woman. Just as well Andy is a feminist…