Emma Raducanu (pictured) is taking the world of sports by tempest, tornado, typhoon or the storm of your choice. Born in Toronto to a Romanian father and a Chinese mother, Raducanu and her family moved to London when she was two years old. Now 18 years old, Raducanu is the 150th-ranked tennis player in the whole wide world. At the 2021 US Open (the one for tennis, not the US Open table tennis tournament just announced for December 17-22), Raducanu swept her qualifying group without dropping a set. Now all the way through to the finals, she has still yet to drop a set. There, she meets another surprise finalist in the form of 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez, a fellow Canadian native ranked a comparatively elite yet comparably overachieving #73 in the world. While the matchup of teen phenoms is fodder for feel-good sports reporting, it is Raducanu's training regimen which interests those of our racket sport denomination. When visiting her mother's family in Shenyang, China, Raducanu trains at the local table tennis club. Tian Fangzheng, who runs the club, marvels at the improvement Raducanu has shown in her yearly visits. "She picked up the sport very quickly, and you can tell she is a sportsperson," says Tian, who also notes the stylistic influence of her day job. "You can tell she has the movements of playing tennis when playing ping-pong," he observed. Although Raducanu hones her reflexes and coordination with other diversions such as ballet, horseback riding and even racing go-karts, table tennis is clearly an advantage in terms of conditioning. As Tian Fangzheng observed at his club in Shenyang, "When all the other kids were tired, she was not." Now, as Emma Raducanu vies for her first Grand Slam title, she faces another talented, fearless teen much like herself. Luckily, she has an ace up her sleeve.

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