The High Price of Fame: Emma Raducanu’s Struggle After US Open Victory

In the British press, almost everything at Wimbledon is now only about the 21-year-old Emma Raducanu.Image: keystone

Her surprise US Open victory in 2021 has catapulted Briton Emma Raducanu into the spotlight. Despite her lack of sporting success, she is the highest-earning female athlete in the world. She is paying a high price.

03.07.2024, 14:0503.07.2024, 14:27

Simon Häring, Wimbledon / ch media

When Briton Emma Raducanu won the US Open three years ago as an 18-year-old qualifier, she wrote one of the most beautiful fairytales in recent tennis history. Now she would like to undo the success.

The price she pays for her one-off victory is always apparent when she returns to Wimbledon, where she attracts all eyes. BBC expert Tim Henman said he expected Raducanu to reach at least the fourth round. She herself said she was overjoyed to have made it through the first round on Monday.

Raducanu after her first round victory at Wimbledon.Image: keystone

Raducanu was born in Canada in 2002, her mother is from China, her father from Romania. They emigrated to London when Raducanu was two years old. In the summer before her US Open victory, she was number 338 in the world and reached the round of 16 in her Grand Slam debut at Wimbledon. Before that, Raducanu had not played in any tournaments for 18 months because she wanted to concentrate on her school leaving certificate during the pandemic, which she completed with top marks.

That summer she became a child star and then a sports star overnight. She entered a world that Raducanu and her results never belonged to because the victory in New York remained an isolated event.

In September 2021, Emma Raducanu won the US Open.Image: keystone

Raducanu earned $15.2 million

Although she was only ranked 299th in the world rankings at the end of last year, she was the highest-paid female athlete in the world. According to business magazine Forbes, she earned 15.2 million dollars, 200,000 of which was in prize money. The man pulling the strings is the busy agent Max Eisenbud, who had already turned Maria Sharapova into a global brand.

Anyone like Emma Raducanu who attracts so much attention in a global sport like tennis and who also speaks Mandarin and English quickly becomes a sought-after advertising model. Although the now 21-year-old has never won a tournament before or after the US Open, she is the face of brands such as Nike, British Airways, Porsche and Dior.

Before the tournament, Raducanu appeared in the England kit and with a £2,600 bag from her sponsor Dior.Image: keystone

This means that at the end of the Wimbledon tournament, Emma Raducanu will have earned 600,000 francs without having played a single ball. That is more money than the advance to the quarter-finals will bring in (450,000 francs).

She is a guest at fashion shows, meets Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the child rights activist, and plays tennis with Princess Kate Middleton. 2.5 million people follow her on Instagram. There are cameras everywhere, fans, YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram. The product: Emma Raducanu.

The Briton says that the tennis circus and everything connected with it is not a friendly, trusting and safe space. And: “I have realised that many people only see me as an investment because I am still so young.”

In the second round, Raducanu will face Belgian Elise Mertens.Image: keystone

Operations on both wrists

If she could turn back time, she would do so and undo the biggest victory of her career. “At the moment of my victory in New York, I would have traded everything for that moment. No matter what happened to me, I wanted to accept it, that was what I promised myself at that moment, because it felt like the best thing in the world,” she told the British newspaper “The Times” a year ago.

Emma Raducanu missed Wimbledon at the time because she had recently undergone surgery on both wrists and her foot. She only returned to the tennis circuit at the beginning of the year after an eight-month break. Today she says: “I am resilient, my tolerance is high, but it is not easy and sometimes I think: ‘I wish I had never won the US Open, I wish that had never happened,'” she once said.

In 2023, Raducanu had to undergo surgery on both wrists.Image: zvg

Maybe then she wouldn’t have become the victim of a stalker. Shortly after her victory in New York, a married Briton was lurking around the suburb in northwest London where Raducanu lived with her parents. He left flowers and a note in front of the house: “You deserve love!” Once, the then 35-year-old marked on a map the 23-mile route that the unemployed man had walked from his home – in the hope of meeting Raducanu. On the third visit, shortly before Christmas, he decorated a tree in front of her home and stole a pair of shoes from the doormat. Raducanu’s father observed the incident, followed the man and notified the police.

Raducanu explained to British media what this does to the person affected: “I hardly dare to leave the house anymore, especially not alone. I am scared and feel persecuted. I no longer feel safe in my own home. My freedom has been taken away from me.”

Emma Raducanu is not the most successful female athlete of the present day, not even in tennis. But no one earns as much as she does. The price she pays for that is a life in a golden cage. (aargauerzeitung.ch)

2024-07-03 12:05:19
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