The qualifier, the British teenager, just a couple of months after finishing her A-Levels elevating herself into a stratosphere she could never have imagined.
Quite rightly, Raducanu was hailed as the new queen of British tennis, the poster girl – and some of the biggest brands in the world wasted no time in snapping her up with lucrative endorsements.
But three years on from that fairytale fortnight in New York and the mood around Raducanu is rather underwhelming.
She has played just 83 matches since, winning 42 of them, and has been plagued by injuries as her body struggles to get used to the rigours of professional tennis.
Five retirements between February 2022 and January 2023 were evidence of that – as was her need for three surgeries on both wrists and an ankle last year, ending her season in April.
There remains, though, one question on everyone’s lips, from casual tennis fans, to expert pundits to the accountants at Dior, Tiffany and Porsche…
Will Emma Raducanu win another Grand Slam?
If the answer was a simple no, that would be totally fine.
On the face of it, Raducanu, 21, has achieved more in her tennis career than anyone could have expected from her, she gave British tennis fans the most fantastic scenes in 2021 and she set herself up for life financially by tapping into the unignorable opportunities presented.
She doesn’t owe anybody anything.
The lazy demands quips that she has done it once and should do it again are nonsense.
There is a reason why 99 per cent of professional tennis players never win a Grand Slam – or even get close.
And yet, and yet, the answer is not a simple no because there is the flip side of the same coin.
The side that shows she is an incredible tennis player that did win a Grand Slam aged 18 and propelled her into a global superstar virtually overnight.
The side that keeps the flicker of the candle still burning in the hope she could just do it again.
That she could prove Flushing Meadows was not just a spectacular, miraculous flash-in-the-pan one-off.
But if that is the case, and the answer to that multi-million dollar question is going to be a yes, then 2025 is absolutely critical.
That’s not to say she must win that elusive second Major in the next four attempts or she may as well give up.
It’s to say that she has reached a crux point in her career and the decisions she makes over the next 12 months may well determine how the rest of it plays out.
Emma Raducanu has got two of the best ingredients for success in the bag already: talent and experience.
Ironically, not dropping a set in ten matches as a qualifier en route to the 2021 US Open showed she had the former and gave her the latter.
Now it’s time for her to build up the other blocks to put herself in a position to compete at the top of tennis again, and to do so consistently.
Speaking of consistency, that is an undeniable necessity for the next chapter in Raducanu’s career.
The hire-and-fire conveyor belt approach to coaching didn’t work and she finally seems to be settled with childhood coach Nick Cavaday and Jane O’Donoghue in her corner.
Now it’s time to couple stability off the court with stability on the court, namely playing and winning tennis matches.
Eyebrows were understandably raised when Raducanu skipped qualifying for the French Open, one of the four Grand Slams of the year, to train and prepare for the grass-court season.
Arguably it paid off with runs to the Nottingham Open semis and the quarters at Eastbourne including her first top-ten win before losing to qualifier Lulu Sun in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
However, the refusal to attempt to qualify for either of August’s WTA 1000 events in Toronto or Cincinnati was simply a mistake.
Yes, 2023 was a write-off and 2024 was about making a sustainable comeback without her body breaking down again.
But 2025 has got to be the year Raducanu knuckles down, putting in the hard graft in the gym and on the tour.
It is only by entering tournaments, even if she has to swallow some pride and go through qualifying, that she will play regular matches and therefore can accumulate wins to rise up the rankings once again.
However, for all this to happen, Raducanu must want it, must have that fire and hunger.
The comedown after reaching the pinnacle is real.
Pep Guardiola called out Jack Grealish for dropping his levels for Manchester City last season after winning the Treble in 2022-23.
But the mark of the very best sportspeople is to go again and again and again.
Raducanu doesn’t have to look far for the perfect examples of relentless pursuits of achieving greatness, none more so than Novak Djokovic and his 24 Grand Slam titles in her very own sport.
Embrace that challenge – and it is a real challenge that requires humility and wise guidance around her – and Raducanu can lay the foundations to push on and be a somebody at the upper echelons of tennis again.
Do that and that answer can be an emphatic yes. An emphatic yes we would all love to see.
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