It is understood that a man whose 'obsessed' behavior towards Emma Raducanu saw her reduced during a match in the Dubai tennis championship, a letter was given to her hotel on Monday.
Raducanu reduced to shrink behind the referee's chair only two games at his second round with Karolina Muchva on Tuesday after detecting the individual sitting in the stands.
The 22 -year -old approached the chair referee, Miriam Bley in Germany, with visible anguish, apparently offering some brief words of explanation before retiring behind the chair while Bley used a Walkie Talkie to alert the tournament officials.
Although the initial reports suggested that the former Us Open champion had been previously approached by the man, the revelation that he presented a written message emits Raducanu's alarm in a new light.
The WTA, the governing body of the female game, then issued a statement that reveals that a man was eliminated from the stands and would be forbidden to attend future WTA events pending a greater investigation of the circumstances surrounding the incident.
“On Monday, February 17, Emma Raducanu was contacted in a public area by a man who exhibited obsessed behavior,” the statement said. 'This same individual was identified in the first rows during Emma's match on Tuesday in the Dubai Duty Free tennis championship and subsequently expelled. He will be expelled from all WTA events awaiting threat evaluation.
'The safety of players is our highest priority, and tournaments are recommended on best security practices for international sporting events.
'The WTA is actively working with Emma and its team to guarantee your well -being and provide any necessary support. We remain committed to collaboration with tournaments and their security teams worldwide to maintain a safe environment for all players.
Although no details have been revealed about the identity of man, it is understood that he is not a British citizen.
Emma Raducanu was distressed and crying after a man repeatedly approached him in the Dubai Open
The former British number communicated with the referee after he seemed to notice someone who was watching the game
While Raducanu protected himself behind the referee's chair, his opponent Karoline Muchva went to comfort her
Therefore, it seems that there is no connection between the last incident and a previous case that involves a delivery driver of northwest London who received a five -year restriction order in February 2022 after repeatedly visiting Raducanu's house .Raducanu said after that episode that Amrit Magar's actions, which they walked out of his home, left unwanted gifts and cards, and stole her properties of her porch, had made her insecure in her own home and left her “constantly looking for above his shoulder. ” .
“Since all this has happened, I have felt scared,” Raducanu said in a statement at that time. “I feel very apprehensive if I leave, especially if I'm alone.”
'Because of this, I feel that my freedom has been removed. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder. I sit at the limit and worry that this can happen again.
The first Raducanu meeting with Muyova, a former finalist from the France Open who has been classified as high as eighth in the world, had originally been scheduled for the Court one at the Dubai Aviation Club Tennis Center before the weather before the weather inclined forced a change to court.
The court is interspersed between two others, with spectators sitting behind the baseline instead of both sides of the court. That meant that Raducanu, who lost 7-6 (8-6), 6-4, faced the man directly from one end of the court, while he was aware of his presence behind her in the other.
The authorities moved quickly to deal with the situation.
“The tournament security team worked in collaboration with the WTA security team to proactively identify and immediately expel the individual,” said the organizers of the WTA 1000 event in a statement.
The player fought and returned to see the game, but could not fight after losing the first set
Amrit Magar, 35, received a five -year restriction order and sentenced an 18 -month community order in 2022
Magar visited the house of the Raducanu family for the first time in November 2021 with a bouquet of flowers and a note, but said he was a delivery driver who left gifts from another person
Raducanu was able to continue after a brief delay, and continued to give a good account of herself in a close defeat in the straight sets, but inevitably the comparisons with similar incidents that involve high profile players will be extracted.
The most notorious of those involved Monica Seles, an old number 1 of the world of Yugoslavia Serbia that was stabbed during a change in an event in Hamburg in April 1993.
His attacker, a 38 -year -old German named Günter patch who was motivated by the desire to see Steffi Graf, the German rival of Seles, restored to the ranking No. 1, passed the security path before falling a knife at the top of Seles. back.
The episode is considered widely that it has altered the course of the history of tennis. Seles, who was 19 at that time, had accumulated eight Grand Slam titles at the time of the incident, but would add only one more, to the 1996 Australian Open, before his retirement in 2008.
Efforts were made to improve security arrangements in tournaments after the attack. These included a more exhaustive search for the spectators when they reached the events, more security personnel to accompany the players between the costumes and the court, and a presence of increased security on the court, more visibly to the changes of purposes.
However, the measures did little to create a greater sense of security among the players.
In September 2001, a 34 -year -old German man named Albrecht Stromeyer began stalking Serena Williams, following her in tournaments in Europe and the United States before she was finally arrested by the Police at the US Open.
The former American number 1 was not persecuted by another man, Patenema or Edraogo, who was 40 when he was arrested after trying to enter a closed complex in southern Florida, where Williams lived in 2011.
Serena Williams, the former champion withdrawn from the world No. 1 and 23 times of Grand Slam, attracted the unwanted attention of obsessive fans on more than one occasion in her career.
Martina Hingis, another former number 1 of the world, seen here in action in Wimbledon in 2007, testified in court against an Australian naval architect who stalked it between 1999 and 2000
British No 1 Katie Boulter has also been persecuted by strangers, one of whom sent it a message on social networks threatening to damage it during a court event in Nottingham
Martina Hingis, another former number 1 of the world, was moved to hire a bodyguard after he was persistently followed by Dubravko Rajcevic, an Australian naval architect of medium age, between 1999 and 2000.
Rajcevic, who shaded her from one tournament to another, stalked out of her home and bathed her with letters and gifts, was arrested in Miami in the spring of 2000 and subsequently imprisoned for two years after Hingis testified against him in court.
“I'm happy to be in jail,” Hingis later He told the observer. 'I guess we attract these strange people. The girls in short skirts, the best paid female sport, the profile. It has become much bigger, more global, like the show.
After the winning race of the title of Sloane Stephens in the US Open in 2017, the FBI moved to intervene when an obsessive fan began to bomb the American and his family and his family with messages.
“It was like thousands of messages that this person had sent, just for me,” Stephens He told Tennis Insider Club podcast. “After winning the US Open, it was literally without stopping, but it was for everyone in my family.”
Stephens's fieldmate, Danielle Collins, the world No. 12, has said that the problem is widespread in female tennis.
“I have had to be very attentive and cautious about how my life carried out, to make sure I am safe,” Collins Said last summer.
'I think that sometimes that has encountered fans as retired, distant, but the reality is that sometimes I have had to be more care with what I say and do because I do not want certain people to know where I am, what I am doing or patterns in my daily life.
That precaution is understandable. Katie Boulter, British number 1, has reported how it has often been persecuted by strangers, perhaps in particular when someone contacted her on social networks while competing in an event prior to Wimbledon in Nottingham.
“I'm outside,” he read the disturbing message. 'I'm going to hurt you if you go out.' The individual person was later found at the tournament site.
Boulter was also followed by a car when he went to his fiance Alex de Minaur, the Australian world, of the Queen Club in West Kensington, London. Subsequently, the couple went shopping just to be followed home by the same car.
“It happens to us all, it is part of life when you are in the public eye a bit.” Boulter said. “Obviously you don't feel comfortable.”
For Raducanu, the incident could hardly have arrived at a worse time. After having claimed a remarkable victory over Maria Sakkari in the first round, breaking a sequence of four consecutive losses, the worst run of his short career, the former champion of the US Open. Uu. He would have been enjoying the perspective of facing Another former opponent Top 10 in Muyova.
The current 17th Czech ranking is a reflection of wrist surgery that underwent last February that her ability, which led her to the second semifinal of the United States Open of her career last September, and is for the credit of the credit of Raducanu who managed to make a match fight after his inexhaustible start.
The British was recovered from 0-4 on the opening set to force a rambling, which led 5-2 before Muchva had to break again.
As for the tennis, he marked an encouraging conclusion for the Swing of the Middle East for Raducanu after the direct defeats at the hands of the former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in Abu Dhabi and Ekaterina Alexandrova, the Russian world no 22, in the open of Qatar