A 35-year-old man who harassed the tennis player Emma Raducanu even at her home in London, won’t be able to get close to the surprising champion of the last US Open for five yearsa British court ruled on Wednesday.
Emma Raducanu revealed what she will do with the US$2.5 million she won at the US Open and caused surprise
Amrit Magar, a former Amazon delivery man, went three times between November and December 2021 to the 19-year-old player’s home. There he decorated a tree and left her a bouquet of flowers with a letter telling her that she “deserved love.” The man, originally from north-east London, had also sent the British champion a drawing to show her the “23 miles” (37 km) she walked to get to her house in the south-east of the city. The English newspaper The Sun accessed the map scrawled by hand in Magar’s cursive handwriting.
The stalker will not be able to contact Emma Raducanu or her parents, or come within a mile (1.6 kilometers) of her street or go to facilities where the tennis player is competing or training. She will also have to do 200 hours of community work and will have to respect a specific curfew between 9 at night and 6 in the morning: for that she will wear an electronic anklet, according to the English newspaper The Sun. In addition, she will pay £500 in court costs and £95 compensation to the victim.
Magar had been arrested after the father of the number 85 in the world ranking warned of his presence, detected by a surveillance camera, and that he was missing a sneaker that he had left outside. Magar told the authorities that he was “attracted” to Raducanu after his victory at the US Open, and that he took the shoe “as a souvenir”, thinking it belonged to the young woman. When listening to the verdict of Justice, the tennis player’s stalker did not even take off his headphones.
The victim, on the other hand, did speak. “Since all this happened, I felt very scared. I’m scared especially when I go out alone. It’s like my freedom has been taken away from me. I constantly look over my shoulders”, confessed Raducanu. She added: “I am nervous and worried that this will happen again. I don’t feel safe in my own home, which is where I should be safest. I want to move to a new house with more security: I am worried that he will come back as he knows where my house is,” Raducanu said.
Raducanu lives a discreet start to the season. Eliminated in the second round of the Australian Open in mid-January, she was unable to complete her match on Tuesday at the tournament in Guadalajara (Mexico) due to a left hip injury.
