Poor Emma

I love watching women’s tennis, but I didn’t enjoy watching it last night, because I wasn’t watching a tennis match, I was watching an 18-year-old girl getting bullied into a panic attack.
There is an over-used and under-appreciated phrase in this country, which is ‘duty of care’. It’s a term that looks great on company policies, but as a concept, it is misunderstood by employees and poorly executed by most bosses. At its heart, though, is the idea that we are all supposed to look after each other and not do anything to damage anyone else’s welfare, especially those we have a degree of responsibility for. Emma Raducanu was failed horribly by everyone who should have been protecting her best interests. Instead of putting their arms around her and giving her their support, they pushed her out onto Court No.1 and hung her out to dry.
At the time I am writing this, there is not yet an official announcement about what may have been wrong, but as someone with a personal understanding of anxiety, I am pretty sure I know what was happening to her. And I’m really not surprised.
Earlier yesterday, Novak Djokovic had answered questions about his easy win against a lowly-ranked opponent, and he pointed out how overwhelming an appearance on Wimbledon’s show courts could be. He explained how simply walking out onto the grass at a venue you have watched for years on television can do incredible things to your mind. Your head, if I may be permitted to paraphrase him here, can go haywire.
All the top players have said how you have to learn to be a top player. It’s not just about being good at tennis and beating the person at the other end of the court, it’s about dealing with the whole set of circumstances that surround the match. The media, the traditions, the protocol, the nerves, the drug tests, the travel, meal schedules, rain delays. There are enormous amounts of outside factors to negotiate and rise above, and it takes a long time to get used to it, and still be able to compete.
Emma Raducanu, who only recently joined the WTA Tour and is ranked outside the Top 300 in the World, had to simultaneously deal with multiple firsts - her first win at a Grand Slam, playing in front of a big crowd, speaking to the media, being recognised, known and admired – without any thought being given to how well she might have been coping. The BBC and Wimbledon conspired to make her the centrepiece player on a show court at a time they could get peak viewing, which meant she had to wait around for hours on end, trying to keep herself mentally prepared for a match that two weeks ago no-one would have given her a chance in.  She has gone from being a complete unknown to a national celebrity in the course of a week and was expected to carry the hopes of the whole UK, completely on her own, live on prime-time television.
And it’s only a month since she finished her A-levels.
At 18, I had received top marks in my year for a practical chemistry exam. My teacher described me as ‘competent beyond my experience’. But if you had made me do that experiment again, in an arena containing 10,000 people, and kept reminding me that millions more were watching from home, and that their happiness depended on my success, I’m pretty sure I would have gone to pieces. My hands would have shaken so much I’d have ended up spilling acid all over myself. Or I might have felt violently sick to my stomach. Or I might have had difficulty breathing.

My main worry in all this is that it’s not something she can easily move on from. It’s all over the media today and will be replayed, analysed and scrutinised by experts and laymen alike, and given more importance than it ever needs to hold. And however the rest of Emma’s year pans out, she faces the prospect of returning to Wimbledon next year and having to ‘face her demons’. Anyone who has ever had an anxiety attack in a shop (for example) will tell you how incredibly difficult it is to return to that same location again. The mere thought of being back in that same place physically is enough to take you back to that same state mentally. The familiar surroundings can bring on the symptoms, because your mind associates that location to the way you felt when you were there, and your body reacts accordingly. The thought that panic might happen again is sometimes enough to cause that panic to arise.
And even if she comes back stronger and calmer, you just know that the newspapers will take great delight in 2022 in reminding her about what happened on 5^th July 2021. Because that’s what they do. A relatively minor incident in her young life will become a millstone around her neck that will be brought up repeatedly and therefore kept in the forefront of her mind, no matter how much she tries to move on from it.
Think I’m exaggerating?
You only have to look at what’s happening with the current England football manager Gareth Southgate. He is helping lift the spirits of a nation and he is leading his young charges to unprecedented levels of international acclaim, but every day he is asked about an incident from 25 years ago. Redemption stories sell papers, and Raducanu’s trauma last night will be used as a stick to beat her with until she wins again at Wimbledon; probably even beyond that. And I suspect, being a very bright young woman, she knows all that, and it is probably adding to her woes today.

We’re supposed to be getting better at this mental health stuff. We’re being told that companies are taking better care of their staff, and that as a society we’re treating each other with more understanding and support.  And then one week into Wimbledon we all buy into the hype and hyperbole and force ridiculous expectations on the shoulders of someone young.
We have gone nowhere but backwards.

RC 6-7-21