The other winner of Emma Raducanu’s stunning victory

Not many people would have seen that coming. I’m talking of course of last Saturday evening and the women’s final at the US Open. Who would have guessed what the lady did next? She sat down and wrote Emma Raducanu a letter.

OK, it probably wasn’t the Queen who wrote it. Some flunky would have done that, and then the message was rolled out once the Bromley biffer had nailed Leylah Fernandez with a crisp service ace way beyond the bemused and increasingly tetchy Canadian’s forehand.

The establishment took a long time to acknowledge the feats of sportsmen and, more especially, of sportswomen. Administrators, blazers and athletes who weighed in after they had retired from competitive sport were usually the first to be recognised with gongs. It was many more years before active sports people felt the tap from the royal blade: men such as jockey Gordon Richards in 1953, and footballer Stanley Matthews in 1965. Many others brought honour to their country with barely a nod, such as another tennis ace, Fred Perry, who won three successive Wimbledons in the 1930s.

Since then, the benefits of being linked to sporting success have been grasped ever more eagerly by politicians and royals. The media is already awash with speculation that an honour might soon be heading Emma’s way — even, heaven forbid, a damehood. But who would have guessed that royal recognition would have been so prompt, a message from Her Maj zinging across the pond to arrive with the blizzard of other plaudits that greeted Raducanu as she stepped off court in New York.

But she is a class act, her Maj, though not known for her love of tennis (she’s been to Wimbledon four times, I think).