Tennis News: Emma Raducanu, Carlos Alcaraz and weird Wimbledon food facts

Emma Raducanu looks almost all the way back. The surprise 2021 US Open champion has struggled since early in 2022 with form, but mostly injuries. She has had surgery on both wrists and one ankle and had to take a lot of time away from tennis. The sport isn't like riding a bike, though; one must play their way back into form.

For much of 2024, Raducanu has been inconsistent. Not until the Rothesay Open in June did she win more than two matches at any event. While she lost in the quarterfinals in her new tournament, the Rothesay International, she did defeat second-seeded Jessica Pegula to get that deep at the event. Her confidence was just beginning to get an uptick.

At Wimbledon, she has played brilliantly. She has yet to drop a set and she has not lost more than three games in any set except for the first set she played in the first round. In the third round, she powered past ninth-seed Maria Sakkari and looked to be in the kind of form that could make her a danger to make a deep run at the grass-court major.

Emma Raducanu using her inner Carlos Alcaraz and the amount of food needed at Wimbledon

In a press conference at Wimbledon, Raducanu revealed something that is helping her mentally, and that is watching Carlos Alcaraz's matches, the most recent played on center court just before Raducanu played on the same court versus Sakkari. The Brit told the press, "I think the last couple (of) matches I’ve been following Carlos, and yeah, it’s just good to watch before the match. I think sometimes in certain moments you in a way try to emulate (Alcaraz's) shots or whatever."

In completely different news, how many tons of strawberries would one think are served at Wimbledon? The tournament is famous for its strawberries and cream, of course, because it is, well...delicious. According to what Perdita Sedov, head of food and drink during the Grand Slam, told ABC News, last year 50 tons of strawberries were used.

There were also 281,151 hot meals served in 2023 and 14,968 liters of dairy cream used to mostly go with the strawberries. People were thirsty as well as 257,381 cups of tea were served and 341,202 glasses of Pimm's and lemonade.

In order to prepare all that food and drink, Wimbledon has over 3,000 members of staff, 55 kitchens, and almost 300 chefs. That is a lot of moving pieces for Sedov to oversee. She must do an amazing job, however, because when was the last time anyone heard a complaint about the food at Wimbledon?

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