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.
