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Tennis fans have hailed Andy Murray for the bold prediction he made about Caroline Garcia more than a decade ago.
29-year-old Garcia emerged victorious in the 2022 WTA Finals that concluded on Monday. She defeated Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka to cap off her most successful season yet, having won four titles in the four finals she contested - the WTA Finals, Cincinnati Open, Poland Open and Bad Homburg Open. With the title win, Garcia placed herself second – behind World No. 1 Iga Swiatek - on the list of WTA players with the most singles titles in 2022.
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The Frenchwoman kept her nose to the grindstone throughout the second half of the season to reclaim her career-high ranking of World No. 4 she first attained in 2018, from a slump in form which saw her ranked World No. 75 earlier in 2022.
Interestingly, former World No. 1 Murray boldly predicted Garcia would rise to the top of the WTA rankings. The prediction, which dates back to May 2011, was made when a young 17-year-old Garcia played five-time Slam champion Maria Sharapova in the second round of the French Open and nabbed the opening set during her eventual loss.
"The girl Sharapova is playing is going to be number one in the world one day Caroline Garcia, what a player u heard it here first," he had remarked.
With Garcia witnessing a revival in form, tennis fans have dug out Andy Murray’s decade-old tweet to hail his prophecy.
"Thank you Andy Murray for being a visionary. Some of us out here noticed it and appreciated it," one fan lauded.
Another fan relished the frequent mention of Andy Murray due to Caroline Garcia’s recurrent success in recent times.
"I love how every time Caro plays well this tweet pops up again," the fan noted.
Here are a few more reactions from fans:
"At the time, when I was 17, it was a bad experience" – When Caroline Garcia revealed the impact of Andy Murray’s tweet
Three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray noticed Caroline Garcia when she was brought in as a wildcard at the 2011 French Open. The Frenchwoman was aged 17 at the time, and in an interview from 2021, she referred to the attention as a “bad experience”.
Garcia noted that she wasn’t ready at the time and the weight of people’s expectations had an impact on her performance. She, however, also acknowledged people’s belief in her.
"At the time, when I was 17, it was a bad experience. Mentally I wasn’t ready. I played an unbelievable match, but I wasn’t able to be consistent at that level. I felt that everybody from the outside was expecting me to play at that level every match, so they couldn’t understand why I was losing to players ranked about No 150 in the world," she said, per TennisHead.
"I had a lot of pressure and I couldn’t deal with it because I wasn’t ready. But you can’t regret that kind of experience. It’s great that people talk about you in this way. They say you have potential, that you can accomplish things. And it’s probably better that people think like that rather than the other way!" she added.
