US Open: ‘Chinese teen’ Emma Raducanu trends on Weibo after historic win
- More than 200 million reads of ‘18-year-old Chinese teenager wins the US Open’ hashtag on social media platform
- Teenage champion thanks fans in Mandarin in video after beating Leylah Fernandez as debate on China tennis continues
US Open champion Emma Raducanu has become a hot topic on Chinese social media with the teenager also thanking fans in Mandarin after her historic win in New York.
The hashtag “18-year-old Chinese teenager wins the US Open” trended on Weibo after the British teen, whose mother is from China and father from Romania, beat Canada’s Leylah Fernandez on Saturday night.
It had more than 200 million reads in 24 hours following Raducanu’s historic win in New York.
Raducanu’s mother Renee was born in Shenyang, Liaoning province, before moving to Canada where she met her husband and the tennis star was born before relocating to Britain aged two.
The official US Open Weibo account shared a video of Raduanu speaking to her Chinese fans in Mandarin after she had collected the trophy.
That video had well over a million views on the US Open account alone and it was widely posted elsewhere on the Twitter-like Chinese-language social media platform.
Who is Britain’s Chinese-Romanian teen tennis star Emma Raducanu?
“I want to say thank you,” Raducanu told fans. “I hope you enjoy watching me play tennis, I am very happy now.” It was also posted on Twitter.
Raducanu’s success started social media debate on when China would have another singles champion in a grand slam.
Li Na, who Raducanu has described as an inspiration, won the French Open and Australian Open in her career but no one has followed the hall of famer.
China’s number one singles player Zhang Shuai, who Raducanu beat on her way to the historic win in the women’s singles, won the women’s doubles with Australian partner Samantha Stosur.
