Who is Mingge Xu? Emma Raducanu's first-round Wimbledon opponent in profile

Independent

4 hours ago

Four summers ago, Emma Raducanu was the British teenager aiming to become Wimbledon champion. This summer, she will be trying to stop a British teenager at the first hurdle: Mingge Xu.
This year's Wimbledon draw paired Raducanu, 22, with Xu, 17, in the first round, as Raducanu begins her latest bid to add to her 2021 US Open triumph.
Raducanu endeared herself to tennis fans at Wimbledon 2021 while making a fine run to the fourth round, before surpassing that achievement in September of the same year, when she won her first – and so far only – grand slam, the US Open.
Raducanu has struggled for consistency since, and her deepest run at SW19 remains the fourth round, which she reached again last year, while she enters this summer's Wimbledon on the back of a second-round exit at the last major, the French Open.
In any case, she has considerably more grand-slam experience than Xu, who has been handed a wildcard to play at a major for the first time on the pro tour.
Swansea's Xu – the first Welsh player in the main singles draw at Wimbledon in 20 years – reached the junior Australian Open quarter-finals last year and junior US Open semi-finals, showing promise along the way. But her meeting with Raducanu comes at an altogether tougher level, and in front of a much greater audience.
Still, Xu's Wimbledon debut follows her encouraging wildcard run at the Birmingham Open this June, where she stunned top seed Alycia Parks, the world No 52, in the first round. Xu went on to reach the quarter-finals of the WTA 125 tournament, ultimately losing to Jessika Ponchet.
Then, later in June, Xu notched another win over a top-100 player, beating world No 96 Katie Volynets in the first round of the Nottingham Open. However, Xu was defeated by sixth seed Magda Linette in the next round.
Xu's current ranking on the WTA tour is her highest so far: 318th in the world. Meanwhile, Raducanu is the British No 1 on the women's tour and is currently ranked at No 38 in the world, having been as high as No 10 in 2022.
Raducanu enters her clash with Xu on the back of a quarter-final at Queen's, where she was beaten by top seed Qinwen Zheng, and a second-round exit in Eastbourne, where she was eliminated by Maya Joint.
Ahead of her Eastbourne opener, Raducanu praised Wimbledon for banning a man who had stalked her from buying tickets to the grass-court grand slam.
The man in question had been following her at several events over the last year. He was handed a restraining order by police in Dubai after turning up at the Dubai Tennis Championships and appearing at Raducanu's match, a moment that left her afraid and in tears.
But Wimbledon's security system raised a red flag after the man's recent attempt to buy tickets for SW19 this year, with the application subsequently rejected. 'Wimbledon did an amazing job,' Raducanu told the BBC. 'I got a notification, and the police contacted me and assured me that everything was okay.
'I feel okay, I feel comfortable and safe. I've had great protection whenever I've been at these events recently. I feel a difference, and that makes me feel more comfortable.'