Emma Raducanu has a message for the people who have turned her existence into an occasional nightmare these past few years: they are not going to take tennis away from her.

“There’s a part of you that thinks, ‘I’m not gonna let a middle-aged creep stop me doing what I love to do,’” Raducanu told a small group of reporters at Indian Wells, Calif., ahead of her first tournament since a spectator was removed from one of her matches for exhibiting fixated behavior toward her.

“I’m here because I feel a lot better now,” she said in her first public comments since the incident in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last month.

“A lot happened obviously after Dubai, so I just needed to kind of take my time after. I think the allure of Indian Wells being my favorite tournament, I just couldn’t really step away from it.”

Raducanu said her decision to play was last-minute; she made the call last Wednesday, and was on a plane from London Thursday. As Raducanu spoke, two tournament security workers stood nearby. They will be with her just about everywhere she goes when she is on the grounds. She will have other minders with her when she is outside the tournament gates.

“The security is very important,” she said. “Even if the player hotels are public information, that’s not necessarily the most helpful and anyone can walk in. That’s obviously a weak spot, but I do my best. I’m always, and now even more so, very aware and very alert and sensitive and I don’t really go anywhere on my own.”

This is not what Raducanu signed up for when she won the U.S. Open out of nowhere aged 19 in 2021, but on multiple occasions she has had to deal with people invading her space. In Dubai, the person who appeared at her second-round match against Karolina Muchová had “approached her, left her a note, took her photograph, and engaged in behaviour that caused her distress,” according to a statement from Dubai authorities.

“I was obviously very distraught,” Raducanu said. “I saw him first game of the match, and I was like: ‘I don’t know how I’m going to finish.’

“I literally couldn’t see the ball through the tears, I could barely breathe. I was playing Karolina, who’s like top 17 in the world or something, and I can’t see the ball. Then the first four games kind of ran away from me because I was not on the court, to be honest. I’m not really sure how I regrouped.”

Raducanu even had chances to win the first set before she ultimately lost the match 7-6(6), 6-4. “That was a pretty good effort for me to carry on playing in that match and that scenario and finish the match.

“It was a very emotional time and after the match I did completely break down in tears, but not necessarily because I lost. It was more because there was just so much emotion in the last few weeks of the events happening and I just needed that week off to to take a breather,” she said.

Unfortunately, the experience has affected how she goes about her daily life, especially in the weeks following, when she returned to her home in England where she lives with her parents.

“I wasn’t really going out much,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be ready and the last thing I wanted to do was play if I wasn’t ready.” So far, so good: she has found her return to the courts to be liberating. She’s shifted from tugging the bill of her baseball cap low and staring at the ground as she walked outside in England to enjoying the grass field beneath the mountains in the place that calls itself “tennis paradise,” a nickname few players take issue with.

“All the positive support that I get from my fans and like so much love even like on the player lawn here, so far it’s been great,” Raducanu said.

For Raducanu, Dubai was different from her previous experience, in which a man showed up at her family home in London in 2022. That time her family helped to keep her calm. That man was ultimately given a restraining order, as was the man who approached Raducanu in Dubai.

“In Dubai, I was alone and in a different country, so I felt a lot more I guess vulnerable,” she said.

“It was just a very foreign situation and I guess had been going on for quite a long time, so it was very difficult to deal with.”

Now she’s basically never alone, which comes with both plusses and minuses. It’s not how anyone would choose to live. That said, she’s made adjustments, some of which are hard for someone who has long fed off the energy of her broad support.

“You’re not necessarily signing everything or taking a photo with every person, even though I’d love to,” she said. “It’s just like you’re a bit unsure, I think, after what happened.”

(Francois Nel / Getty Images)