
I, like most of the worlds sports fans were inspired to write my latest blog on Emma Raducanu Watching the remarkable performance of Emma Raducanu compete at the age of 18. Winning the prestigious Women’s US Open, after her final 16 performance at Wimbledon and rewriting the record books in her first two Grand Slams. She came through the qualifying rounds to become Britain's first women's singles major title winner for 44 years at the 2021 US Open. To have achieved that, a run of ten wins, without even dropping a set is beyond remarkable, coupled with the fact she is the youngest tennis player to win a grand slam tournament since 2004.
After winning this title at such a young age, which is seen as being the peak for most aspiring tennis players in their career, is this the pinnacle of her performance or as she develops more will we see her performance continue to improve and what age will we see her peak performance? This lead me to research more and find out what the peak age of sports performance is? Research into the area of maturation and its impact on performance has gained popularity in the field of sport and exercise science. Maturation plays a significant role in motor skill development, strength, power and even implications on injury-risk in young athletes. Understanding maturation and how it impacts youth performance and is of great benefit to coaches and athletes. In recent research it has been discovered that an athlete’s peak performance generally reaches its prime between the ages of 20-30 and after this they undergo irreversible decline. The exact age is around 26 where athletes will most likely reach their pinnacle performance. However, research shows there is a difference in the age for peak performance between different sports, for example the age sprinters reach their peak performance is in their early 20s whereas in your early 30s athletes reach their prime performance in skilfull sports for example tennis. From this we can see, this is only the start of a long and successful career for Emma Raducanu, the future seems hopeful for this young tennis star securing a grand slam win at the age of only 18. But, is there an issue pushing too hard too young? Sometimes, young athletes can experience burnout due to overtraining, where the athlete experiences fatigue and declining performance in their sport. Overtraining can result in mood changes, decreased motivation and frequent injuries. This can be caused by intensified training regimes and increasing competitive pressure. Many athletes unfortunately drop out of their sport due to burnout due to experiencing emotional and physical exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment and devaluation of sport participation. Since Emma has began her tennis career as a professional competing all around the world in major grand slam tournaments it is important to prevent burnout due to the major increase in pressure from the world stage.
It is exciting to hear though that is only the beginning of this rising stars career within tennis and the world is wondering what this girl will achieve next as a young athlete taking the world by a storm.

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