The chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association has said that Emma Raducanu’s experience with a stalker at the Dubai Championships is not being considered a security failure.
Raducanu “couldn’t see the ball through tears” during her opening match in Dubai as a man in the crowd demonstrated ‘fixated behaviour’ on the 22-year-old.
The man was removed from the stands by the police and was later given a restraining order.
The Briton told the BBC she believes the incident could have been dealt with better.
The WTA chief executive Portia Archer described the incident as a “very unfortunate series of events.”
“The WTA has invested a great deal of resources into the safety and wellbeing of our players and it’s a priority for the organisation,” Archer told the BBC.
“I wouldn’t call it a security failure at all. As soon as we became aware of the threat, we acted immediately.
“But we will look at ways to improve.”
Emma Raducanu returned to the tennis court at Indian Wells on Thursday but suffered an opening-round defeat to Moyuka Uchijima. She said it was “nice” to just play tennis again and simply focus on the match.
