New US Open champion Emma Raducanu, 18, takes her place among the stars at New York’s Met Gala

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Tennis sensation Emma Raducanu led the glamorous arrivals at the Met Gala last night as she wowed the crowd in a stunning black and white Chanel ensemble. 

The 18-year-old British tennis star has quickly gone from taking her A Levels to brushing up against A-listers after she was launched to fame following a dramatic rise up the ranks in tennis. 

She scored an invite to the prestigious fashion event hosted by Vogue’s Dame Anna Wintour after she won the US Open on Saturday and strutted the red carpet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside some of the world’s biggest stars, including Jennifer Lopez, Megan Fox and Kendall Jenner.

Many fashionistas and A-list stars went all out with bold, beautiful and some truly bizarre looks as they reveled in the spotlight, including a balaclava-clad Kim Kardashian. 

The theme for the evening was In America: A Lexicon of Fashion and the event featured a heavy-hitting contingent of celebrity co-chairs: actor Timothée Chalamet, musician Billie, poet Amanda Gorman and tennis star Naomi Osaka.  

It was no wonder Emma nailed it at fashion’s biggest night of the year after already being dubbed a style icon with her tennis looks.

She arrived at the New York party days after claiming £1.8million cheque for her defeat of fellow teenager Leylah Fernandez, wearing a gorgeous Chanel handkerchief skirt paired with a stunning cropped camisole and oversized shirt in a matching floral print which stole the show.  

While walking up the iconic steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art she showed off the gorgeous pearl body jewellery the French design house gave her for the evening. 

A series of chains and pearls wound their way around Emma’s stomach, meeting in the middle in the designer’s statement CC logo encrusted with pearls and crystals. 

The brunette beauty wore a pare of black patent leather ankle boots to complete the classic black and white look. 

And she added a gorgeous pair of statement crystal earrings to match her body chain. 

The tennis star will feature in this month’s issue of British Vogue wearing a series of designer gowns as she plays tennis in front of the camera.

And the Met Gala is just the first in a long line of red carpet invitations that have been thrust upon the young tennis star in the wake of her success. 

She is also believed to have been asked to attend the premiere of the James Bond film No Time to Die in London at the end of the month. 

And sources from The Graham Norton Show on BBC1 and The Johnathan Ross Show on ITV confirmed they are contending for an interview slot with the teenage athlete, according to The Times.  

She won over the hearts of American television viewers yesterday after appearing on Good Morning America and The Today Show.

The teen wore button-fly jeans, believed to be a pair from fashionable brand Mother costing around £300, along with a white cashmere cardigan and top set costing £228 from sustainable clothing brand Reformation. Her white trainers were from Nike, with whom she has a shoe and clothing sponsorship. 

Her NBC hosts couldn’t get over how fabulous she is in person after having her on their breakfast show, which is shown across America. After interviewing her Craig Melvin gushed: ‘She’s delightful.’ Co-host Savannah Guthrie agreed: ‘I know. A star is born.’ 

During an interview with ABC she revealed her parents could not be in New York to see her extraordinary journey through to the tournament’s final because of strict Covid-19 rules in the US which meant they would have needed a special exemption visa to travel. 

Neither have yet been seen since her victory. Raducanu posted a photo on Instagram today in front of a picture of herself on a billboard in New York, saying: ‘Sightseeing in NY, never thought I would see this, coolest thing.’

And Raducanu told ABC’s Good Morning America today: ‘I think that from a young age I’ve always sort of been brought up to have mental strength. My parents, you know, they played a huge part of my upbringing. 

‘They were pretty tough on me when I was young but it kind of shaped the way and I think now it’s helping on the biggest stages in the world and Arthur Ashe Stadium when you really need it and it was basically a full capacity – so it was very, very cool. ‘ 

She added: ‘It was really nice to talk to them after I won. They were just so happy and proud of me and my toughest critics and very, very hard to please but, yeah, I got them with this one. They couldn’t resist.’

Raducanu beat Leylah Fernandez in the US Open final, winning all 20 sets she played in qualifying and the main draw as she became the first British woman to win a grand slam singles title since 1977 on Saturday.

Romanian Ian and Renee, who is Chinese, were living in Toronto, Canada, when only child Raducanu was born, and the family moved to the UK when she was two.

Both work in finance and their home is in a cul-de-sac in Bromley, South East London, where Raducanu and her father would hit tennis balls together in the street while the coronavirus lockdowns were ongoing. 

During her GMA interview today, Raducanu also thanked the Queen for sending her a message of congratulation following her victory on Saturday, saying: ‘It is absolutely insane to think – it’s incredible.

‘I was so honoured and grateful to receive a note from Her Majesty. I mean, it meant everything to me and I’ll probably frame that letter and keep it in my room or something.’ 

But she added: ‘Honestly, I haven’t checked my messages yet. I’ve just been trying to enjoy the moment. And with my team the night of the final, we just had a really nice night.

‘We all spent the night just reflecting and it was a really cool moment because it’s been such a long trip for us and everything has gone so fast.

‘We were taking care of every single day and before we know it three weeks had gone, but we just got to reflect and share a few stories and it was a really nice night to have with everyone. ‘

After her win on Saturday, she told reporters that the first thing she was going to buy with her £1.8million prize money was a new pair of AirPod headphones after lost them. 

Tim Crow, a sports marketing consultant who advised Coca-Cola on football sponsorship for 20 years, told the Guardian: ‘I haven’t had this many calls from clients, major brands, who are interested in her since Lewis Hamilton broke through in Formula One.

‘If she wins [the final] she will become one of the hottest properties in British sport, if not the hottest.’ 

Elsewhere, PR expert Mark Borkowski told the publication he’d brand her the ‘billion-dollar girl’ – as long as she keeps winning.  

And Emma was in great company at the fashion event as Megan Fox, Irina Shayk, Billie Eilish and Saweetie kicked off the glitz and the glamour as they glided down the red carpet in their show-stopping gowns.  

Megan wowed in the striking crimson gown that featured lace up details along the chest and sides; she paired the thigh-revealing number with red heels and a blunt fringe, adding red lipstick.

The Met Gala is finally back after being cancelled in 2020 amid the pandemic. This year it was pushed to September from its traditional slot on the first Sunday in May.

The theme is In America: A Lexicon of Fashion and the event features a heavy-hitting contingent of celebrity co-chairs: actor Timothée Chalamet, musician Billie Eilish, poet Amanda Gorman and tennis star Naomi Osaka.

Honorary chairs for the evening will be designer Tom Ford, sponsor Instagram’s Adam Mosseri, and Vogue’s Anna Wintour.

The gala is a major fundraiser, providing the Costume Institute with its primary source of funding.

Welcome to the Emm-ys! After the weekend of a lifetime, Britain’s teen sensation Emma Raducanu goes from tennis court to TV circus… and takes America by storm

By Alison Boshoff 

She’s become a household name overnight after dazzling us on court with her historic US Open win.

Now Emma Raducanu is firmly on the path to being a global megastar – after waking up in New York yesterday to find the world clamouring to hear what she has to say about her incredible, faultless win at such a young age.

And it seems the 18-year-old is taking it all in her stride, serving up a set of TV interviews and Instagram posts with ease, humility and (of course) that megawatt smile.

Since victory on Saturday, Emma has swapped hotels from the InterContinental – a plush-enough place which hosted her for free as arranged by US Open – to the Peninsula on New York’s exclusive Fifth Avenue, three times more expensive and the haunt of royalty, presidents and film stars.

From here she found herself at the centre of a media blitz yesterday, appearing live on two breakfast shows within one heady hour.

If that wasn’t enough, the day was due to be topped off by an appearance at the Met Gala, a fashion extravaganza chaired by American Vogue’s editor – and tennis superfan – Anna Wintour. The glittering event was postponed from its usual date in May due to the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning Emma could celebrate her success with a true Cinderella moment.

The freshly-minted millionaire (that phenomenal final victory earned her £1.8million in prize money) was set to emerge in a designer gown, sharing the red carpet with more established stars including Lewis Hamilton and Venus Williams. The teenager from Bromley, who has gone from 2,000 Instagram followers in June to 1.6million today, will have to get used to rubbing shoulders with the A-list.

Her NBC hosts couldn’t get over how fabulous she is in person after having her on their breakfast show, which is shown across America. After interviewing her Craig Melvin gushed: ‘She’s delightful.’ Co-host Savannah Guthrie agreed: ‘I know. A star is born.’

It had been an early start for Emma. At 7am, she and her team left The Peninsula. Coach Andrew Richardson, agent Chris Helliar and physio Will Herbert – who she calls ‘the mechanic’ – had spent Sunday night talking about the incredible victory over the 19-year-old Canadian Leylah Fernandez. It’s thought they did so at their hotel’s striking Salon de Ning rooftop terrace – with Tim Henman also in attendance. 

‘We had a really nice night, you know, we all spent the night just reflecting,’ Emma said yesterday.

‘It was a really cool moment because it’s been such a long trip for us and everything has gone so fast. We were taking care of every single day and before we know it three weeks had gone, but we just got to reflect and share a few stories and it was a nice night to have with everyone.’

As she left the hotel to get into a car with Helliar, a fresh-faced Emma was wearing shorts and a £22 men’s Nike T-shirt featuring a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty holding a tennis racquet.

By 7.30am she had changed and was live on coast-to-coast television on ABC’s Good Morning America, filmed in the network’s studio in Times Square.

The teen wore button-fly jeans, believed to be a pair from fashionable brand Mother costing around £300, along with a white cashmere cardigan and top set costing £228 from sustainable clothing brand Reformation. Her white trainers were from Nike, with whom she has a shoe and clothing sponsorship.

Despite sporting a look familiar to so many teens (a similar cardigan can be bought at Zara for £15.99) she upped her bling factor with an £11,000 gold graduated link necklace from Tiffany, plus the £4,500 pearl and diamond earrings from the jeweller she wore when playing on Saturday night.

Emma seems to have signed a deal to be a Tiffany ambassador. The company changed hands earlier this year and is now a part of the giant LVMH luxury goods empire. The first brief for the new management team is to grow the brand outside America – particularly in the Asian market.

Emma, who was born in Canada to a Romanian father and Chinese mother, is ‘quite capable’ in Mandarin and couldn’t be a better fit for Tiffany. She’s in starry company – Beyonce and Jay-Z are also new ambassadors for the brand.

In her interview with ABC, Emma expressed delight over the letter she received from the Queen – and told all about the mystery of her lost Apple earphones.

After winning on Saturday night she’d told reporters that affording a new pair had become a running joke among her team. ‘Before my first round qualifying match I lost my AirPods and I was basically running around the changing room like three minutes before my call to go on trying to find it, but I lost it.’ Thankfully, she found them just before the semi-finals.

She also said she was happy to have managed to impress her ‘tough’ and ‘hard to please’ parents Ian and Renee, who watched their only child’s match at the family home in Bromley as they weren’t able to travel due to Covid restrictions.

‘I think that from a young age I’ve always sort of been brought up to have mental strength,’ she said.

‘My parents… were pretty tough on me when I was young, but I think now it’s helping on the biggest stages in the world.

‘It was really nice to talk to them after I won. They were just so happy and proud of me… [they’re] my toughest critics and very, very hard to please but, yeah, I got them with this one. They couldn’t resist.’ 

She added that she had increased her endurance and mental strength during the tournament and described her exit from Wimbledon with breathing issues as ‘more of a physical issue’.

She concluded: ‘It’s like almost natural selection, you know… if you don’t [adapt], you lose so it was really fun to experience. I’m just super happy with the week, of course.’

By 7.40am Emma was on her way to another interview with NBC, posing en route for a short video for Instagram in front of a giant billboard featuring her face.

‘Sightseeing in New York,’ she wrote. ‘Never thought I would see this. Coolest thing.’

By 7.44am she was appearing via Zoom on NBC’s breakfast show Today. That programme is also filmed in New York, at the Rockefeller Centre, but Emma’s tight schedule meant she didn’t have time to make it there in person. She appeared instead from a small room nearby.

‘Three weeks ago, I did not think I would last the whole trip,’ she told the hosts.

‘I thought I would be home in a week after qualifying. But I’ve just been doing my best to take care of every single day individually and to the best of my abilities, and three weeks later the time has flown and I was holding the trophy at the end. But, yeah, it was the best time of my life.’

As for any jitters, she said: ‘I think before the match, there were a little bit of pre-match nerves in terms of something just didn’t feel quite 100 per cent, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It’s just a weird feeling. But I think that’s part of the build-up and everything. As soon as I got out and was just doing what I’ve done 100 times before, playing and just focusing on the point and tactics and not trying to get caught up in the occasion, I felt completely normal and it was a great, level match.

‘Leylah played incredible tennis and we were literally throwing everything at each other. I’m just very proud to have come through some tough moments at the end, especially.’

Of the trophy she said: ‘That’s coming with me, right by my side. I’m not checking it in any sort of other luggage. I can’t believe I get to bring it home.’

After her busy morning there was some downtime. Sources in her camp said she and Helliar took a car around New York to see some sights, followed by a low-key lunch. The afternoon would bring preparation for the Met Gala.

This year the event has aimed to feature a far younger crowd. Its celebrity hosts are all aged 25 and under, with a host of Instagram and TikTok stars on the guest list. That list is also smaller this year, down from 600 to just 450, due to Covid restrictions.

The British editor-in-chief of Vogue, Dame Anna Wintour, is the honorary chair of the event and a huge tennis fan, who counts Roger Federer (who once posed with Emma on Instagram) as one of her close friends. She is a regular face in the crowds at Wimbledon and US Open – and speculation swept the city yesterday that she had personally wooed Emma to attend.

Others due to join them were Debbie Harry, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian, with Rihanna hosting the official after-party. But as far as New York – indeed, the world – is concerned right now, Emma is a brighter star than all of them.

Additional reporting from Daniel Bates in New York