Emma Raducanu will be offered enhanced security at the upcoming event in Indian Wells, after last week’s frightening incident involving a stalker in Dubai.
While Raducanu is on the entry list for Indian Wells, she has not yet returned to the National Tennis Centre in south-west London for her usual practice sessions.
But the two tournaments coming up in the USA – first Indian Wells, which starts at the weekend, and then Miami, which is owned by her management agency IMG – are among the biggest showpieces outside the four grand slams.
Reports suggest that Raducanu has been offered up to five extra security guards in Indian Wells to ensure her safety. Normally, high-profile players have one or two guards with them when they pass through the public areas of a tennis tournament, but sources suggest that additional bodies would be a “no-brainer” after last week’s events.
Protection outside the grounds of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden would also be relevant, considering that the man who triggered these security concerns is understood to have approached Raducanu at a cafe in Dubai on Monday afternoon, handed her a letter and taken a photo.
However, it is not as if she lacked off-site security throughout that trip. According to Roman Kelecic – a locum coach who had provided support since the resignation of Raducanu’s regular coach Nick Cavaday on health grounds – told the Croatian outlet Net, “That [the cafe approach] was the only moment in a month where I, the fitness coach, the security guard who was with us, was not with her at that moment.
“So, that man was assessing the situation and looking for the best moment to get closer to her. He had a strategy that was terrifying. He thought everything through, calculated it.”
Raducanu’s team informed organisers of the Dubai event about the issue around lunchtime on Tuesday, not long before she was due to start her first-round match against Karolina Muchova. They had hoped that the man might be kept away from the match, but instead he gained entry to the stands.
As Kelecic told Net, “Three or four hours before the match, we have a photo of that stalker. Not only us, the entire security at the tournament has his photo and everyone knows who he is.
“The first game, two points gone, 15-15, Emma is on the other side of the court and she’s showing us something. At that moment, we didn’t know what it was. Emma loses the first game and runs to us, crying, shouting, ‘Here he is, here he is, here he is’.”
The man was ejected from the match and detained by Dubai police, who gave him a restraining order based on what they described as “fixated behaviour.”
On Thursday, the authorities announced that Raducanu had dropped charges against the man – who is not a British national and is unconnected with the previous stalking case that Raducanu endured in 2022 – after he signed a form promising to distance himself from her.
Security at Indian Wells is expected to be more rigorous than we saw in Dubai. The man in charge of arrangements is the WTA head of security Bob Campbell, a former secret service agent who has worked for the tour since 2013.
