“I’ll be ok,” Emma Raducanu said after a shocking incident at the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championships. The British star was playing in her second-round match against Karolina Muchova earlier this week when she spotted a man in the front row who had displayed ‘fixated behavior’ towards her in Dubai. Earlier, the man had approached Raducanu, left her a note, taken her photograph, and engaged in behavior that caused her distress. As a result, she was left in tears during her match but later opted to put this episode to rest without taking much action.

After Raducanu alerted the chair umpire, the latter approached the tournament authorities and had the man ejected from the stadium. Subsequently, Dubai Police detained the tourist who caused great distress to Raducanu. However, a few minutes back, another sensational update dropped in this case.

It was reported that Raducanu has preferred to drop the charges against the man who was responsible for inappropriate behavior towards the former US Open champion. This comes after the man signed a formal undertaking that he will maintain distance from Raducanu. Despite the ‘difficult experience’ that Raducanu endured during her match in Dubai, she opted to not take the matter forward, ending it briskly by dropping the charges.

While Raducanu went on to lose the match in straight sets, she thanked one and all for the support. Even her opponent Muchova consoled her after the incident as she was reduced to tears. Taking to social media after her match, Raducanu wrote, “Thank you for the messages of support. Difficult experience yesterday but I’ll be okay and proud of how I came back and competed despite what happened at the start of the match. Thank you to Karolina for being a great sport and best of luck to her for the rest of the tournament.” 

However, this wasn’t the first time that Raducanu faced such an incident. A few years back, a man stalked Raducanu in her native country when she was still a teenager.

When Emma Raducanu was stalked after rising to fame

Back in 2021, the British sensation won her maiden Grand Slam title at the US Open. With this win, her fame rose multifold, and she was one of the most sought-after athletes in the sporting world. However, this rise in fame also had its downsides as Raducanu was a victim of inappropriate behavior by a fan.

Back in 2022, a man named Amrit Magar was found guilty of stalking Raducanu and the latter’s father was alerted by a doorbell camera which confirmed the man’s presence near their house. Magar was seen near Raducanu’s house on three separate occasions and he even left unwanted gifts and stole property from the porch. Subsequently, Magar was sentenced to an 18-month community service and was put under curfew for eight weeks.

This episode left a distressing mark on Raducanu, who took some time to recover. As a result, when the episode was repeated in Dubai this week, the dark memories from the past incident might have cropped up in Raducanu’s mind. However, Raducanu would look to emerge strongly from this setback and will aim to get back to winning ways in the upcoming tournaments.