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.