Formidable Mimi Xu is ready to bring the noise against Emma Raducanu on her Wimbledon debut

  • Xu is a formidable physical specimen, 6ft 1in and able to generate huge force 
  • She was first spotted as a six-year-old and is combining events with her exams 
  • WIN WIMBLEDON TICKETS in exclusive M+ competition with Emirates 

Mimi Xu may be five years younger than Emma Raducanu, but the 17-year-old from Swansea won't be bullied when she makes her Wimbledon debut against the British No 1.

Xu is a formidable physical specimen, 6ft 1in and able to generate huge force, and that was evident when she was first spotted as a six-year-old.

'My friend kept saying to me, "You need to see this little girl",' coach Francesca Lewis tells Mail Sport. 'Mimi came for a school thing at the tennis centre. She was pretty good but nothing blew me away apart from her competitiveness. Then I realised she was six. She was so big I assumed she was eight or nine.

'She was properly loud. If she won a point, Mimi's always giving it a big "Come on!" She used to get told off and I fell out with a couple of referees: leave her alone, let her express herself. She did have a habit - if her opponent would say, "Come on", she'd say it back. So you could have a six or seven exchanges of "Come on".

'As she's got older she knows the correct way to do it but she hasn't lost that court presence. At 12 she was the best player in the program - and we have players up to 18,' says Lewis. 'She had outgrown Wales, basically.'

So Xu moved away from her parents - who met as Chinese students at Swansea University - to live, train and study at the LTA Academy in Loughborough.

Mimi Xu will not be bullied by Emma Raducanu when the British pair meet at Wimbledon

Xu, aged just 17, is a formidable physical specimen, 6ft 1in and able to generate huge force

She does, though, face a tough task against British No 1 Emma Raducanu in the first round

This month she has combined the most important tournaments of her life with the most important exams. She sat one biology paper the day before her quarter-final in Birmingham, and another before her last-16 match in Nottingham.

'Whatever she does, she wants to be the best she can,' says Lewis. 'In primary school she had almost completed all of her piano grades, she also played the violin. If she wanted to go to Harvard, she could.'

Post Related