THE QUEEN’S CLUB, LONDON — A little before 6 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Emma Raducanu stood on the Andy Murray Arena at Queen’s Club in west London, soaking up the applause from a packed crowd. She’d just beaten Rebecca Šramková to reach the HSBC Championships quarterfinals, at a time of day that for nearly two decades was basically “the Andy Murray slot” — primetime for the British tennis television audience.
As the crowd watched on from the stands and on BBC Two back home, it felt like the kind of moment the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) had in mind when it secured a women’s event at Queen’s for the first time since 1973. Visibility for women’s tennis and helping the push towards equality were major drivers of the event returning, and with her run to the last eight, Raducanu, the country’s most recent Grand Slam singles champion, acted as the frontwoman for that message.
The original Queen’s Club Championships was a joint men’s and women’s event from 1890 to 1973, before, with echoes of the modern day, a squeezed schedule led to the women’s event being removed from the tournament calendar. The event was held the week before Wimbledon, and with 48 men’s players and 64 women’s players playing simultaneously, there was little wiggle room for…
