EMMA RADUCANU admitted she did not know the General Election was happening.
And she decided against voting for the first time to practise at Wimbledon.
Raducanu booked her place in the third round of the ladies’ singles with a 6-1 6-2 thrashing of Elise Mertens on Wednesday.
The joyous Brit was then serenaded by a fan singing her name and plenty of other merry hecklers in wonderful scenes under the No1 Court roof.
Raducanu will play Maria Sakkari on Friday in a repeat of their 2021 US Open semi-final.
And she has also entered the mixed doubles with British legend Andy Murray.
So when she was asked whether she was planning to head to the ballots before hitting some balls at the All England Club on Thursday, the British star made the honest confession.
A smiling Raducanu said: “No, I think I’ll have a lie-in, then I’ll come to practise.
“I didn’t even know it was tomorrow, to be honest. Thanks for letting me know!”
This is the first General Election Raducanu is eligible to vote in.
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The last one, in December 2019, came just a few weeks after her 17th birthday.
But she is not the only British star focused on points rather than politics this week.
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When asked if he had much interest in the battle for No10, Jack Draper simply said: “No.”
He did add: “I mean, it’s a crazy busy time for us tennis players. There’s not much TV watching. There’s not much time to sort of be thinking about that.
“Obviously it’s really important, so we’ll see.”
Before their Battle of Britain showdown, Harriet Dart and Katie Boulter both insisted their priority is on the tennis.
That is despite Dart – who burst into tears during the third set before winning her grudge match with Boulter – having a sister who works in Parliament.
She said: “I haven’t given it much thought. Albeit, my sister works for an MP. I’m sure she’ll be on at me to vote. But yeah, we’ll see.”
Boulter added: “For me, I’m going to stick to the tennis right now,
“I don’t see myself as someone who’s going to get involved in anything but tennis that day for the moment.
“I’m not necessarily sure what the correlation is between the two. Of course, it’s a huge moment for our country – I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”
PRIZE MONEY for the 2024 Wimbledon Championships is a new record – and puts the grass-court Slam at the top of the tree.
The All England Club will dish out £50million across all the events – an increase of £5.3m and 11.9 per cent on last year, where singles champions Carlos Alcaraz and Marketa Vondrousova picked up £2.35m each.
However, the king and queen of grass this July will collect an extra £350,000 – taking the winner’s earnings to £2.7m.
Here is the breakdown for the 2024 Wimbledon singles prize money:
