US Open champion Emma Raducanu takes to Weibo to tell fans she will play in China
- ‘It’s a pity that I can’t go to China this year but will go and play next year,’ teen star says in first Weibo post
- The 18-year-old has seen her social media following swell ahead of posting on China’s largest platform
US Open champion Emma Raducanu has begun to court her Chinese fans with a first post to her official account on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, telling them that she will play there next year.
“Hello everyone! I’m Emma, I have Weibo,” she wrote. “Thank you for your support”. This captioned a video in which she told fans in Mandarin that she hopes to play in China soon.
“It’s a pity that I can’t go to China this year but will go and play next year,” the 18-year-old said. The Asian swing of the tour would ordinarily include several events in China, but that has been affected by Covid-19 over the last two seasons.
Raducanu’s video had been viewed almost 1.5 million times in its first 24 hours and has also been shared across other social media platforms.
Fans around the world have been quick to follow the teenage champion and China is no exception, where the hashtag “Chinese teen wins the US Open” trended on Weibo after Raducanu beat Canada’s Leylah Fernandez in the final.
Raducanu – whose mother Renee is Chinese and father Ian is Romanian – had previously been praised for her Dongbei (Northeastern) accent when she spoke Mandarin following her US Open win. Her mother’s family are from Shenyang in Liaoning province and Raducanu made annual visits to see them before Covid-19.
‘Chinese teen’ Raducanu trends on Weibo after US Open win
One of the top comments beneath the Weibo video praises her accent again, comparing it to the Japanese ability of former US Open champion Naomi Osaka.
“Emma’s Chinese is much better than Naomi Osaka’s Japanese,” the fan wrote, as others praised her Mandarin as better than their own.
Raducanu saw a boost to her Twitter and Instagram accounts after she spoke in Mandarin to thank fans following her win at the US Open last weekend.
““Hi, everyone. I wanna say thank you to you guys and I hope you could enjoy my tennis. I’m thrilled to win. Love you all, see you,” she said in the previous video.
Raducanu, who has now returned to London following her US Open win, has amassed 1.9 million Instagram followers and 587,000 on Twitter.
Her Weibo following is at almost 13,000 after this first post but it is set to rise based on her other social media accounts.
Wimbledon star Raducanu set to smash it off the court
The Canada-born Briton’s Instagram following was at 400,000 before US Open qualifying and at 1.2 million in the immediate aftermath of her history-making win in New York.
That was already a huge rise from the 30,000 followers she had ahead of her remarkable run to the fourth round as a Wimbledon wild card earlier this summer.
Analysts have already predicted the commercial potential Raducanu is set to exploit, with her Chinese heritage and Mandarin-language ability expected to aid her earning potential in the mainland.
