Emma Radecanu - flash in the pan?

[mids2019]

The US open win and millions in sponsorship....a future British sporting star....

However now does Emma have to seriously look at whether tennis glory is going to be within her reach again?

Is it good for mental health to continuously justify her performance to a varacious press? Was accepting huge sponsorship deals after the US open a mistake in hindsight?

Should Emma possibly looking at new generation of British tennis players maybe think applying to Oxford or a US elite uni would be the most fulfilling life option for her? End on a high with millions in the bank and the promise of a stimulating new career path?

When they were talking about her on the radio before one of the slams this summer they suggested she needed more lower level tournaments to get match fit but said that maybe her sponsors wouldn’t like that.

Flash in the pan and nothing to do with recent AM. Loads of other sports eg footballers never fulfill / reach their potential. So why are we angry that she hasn't?

Poor kid. The press are awful about her and no matter what she does or says, it is twisted and misquoted in the press. Watch the full interviews, the actual story is often quite different to what the press jump on. She won the US when few people had heard of her - then every other match was greatly anticipated, scrutinised and reported on. Normally when a player starts to become known they have had the chance to develop as a player, win and loose relatively quietly with the press not paying too much attention. Being able to creep up the rankings and build experience. She hasn’t had that. How many players starting out switch coaches, have injuries etc that most of us wouldn’t have a clue about, as they aren’t on our radar. Again, she hasn’t had that chance to do anything quietly without all her decisions being questioned. I remember Murray starting out and having issues with cramping and retiring from matches, and to be honest his early interviews were pretty poor!! She has had some amazing matches this year, great wins and got GB the win at the Billie Jean King Cup. I really hope she can stay injury free and the press get bored and back off her a bit. Some of the comments online are just horrendous.

You don't win a grand slam in straight sets, having come through qualifying, without a lot of talent.

Things haven't gone well for her since - partly bad luck and partly poor decisions - but she still has time to turn it around.

I have needs a proper coach, who she allows to tell her things she might not want to hear

72nd in the world still isn't bad, after her surgeries and huge inexperience at tour level (which made her US Open win genuinely remarkable). People forget that tennis is the most widely-played individual sport in the world, so getting anywhere near the top is a crazy achievement.

I think if she settles with the right coach, works on her fitness and hits a bit of form she will be a top 20 player. She might never win a Slam again but there are plenty of top players in the women's game who only win one or two.

I don't blame her for taking the sponsorship money either - nobody knows how long or successful her career will be. Laura Robson eventually retired because of similar wrist surgeries and injury problems in her early 20s, and she arguably had more potential

She's obviously very talented, unfortunate With her injuries -are they down to too much when young ? Not sure why she ditched her coach who she won with ?

"agree with you. She needs better PR and she should have played with Andy Murray and she should have gone to the Olympics. Being part of both would have made her have a bigger part in tennis history."

I disagree. She, rightly, prioritised her singles match. Andy murray would have done the same.

And the Olympics is a funny one. She had a choice of playing the Olympics or the tour to try and get the ranking points. Again, for her personally, I think she made the right decision. She's young enough that the Olympics are still feasible in 4 years

The issue is the press pile on with the hype, the pressure then becomes immense and if the goods aren’t delivered then the press pile on again….

Of course she is a good player but I think she was very lucky with her route to the final when she won the US Open. She didn’t encounter any top players. It’s a bit of a millstone around her neck as everyone expected more from her which must be hard to cope with.

As often is the case, the first post nailed it

She did amazingly and rose to meteoric fame winning the American open, okay she's not done anything like that since but she's still very young ,Didn't Virginnia wade only win two grand slams including the American open and people still talk about her many years later.

I hope she doesn’t read the press and carries on if she wants to. She doesn’t have to prove anything or justify herself to anyone. I think everyone should leave her alone. Also, tennis is an expensive sport as you have to pay a lot of expenses yourself so a lot of players take a lot of sponsorship money. They’d all take it if they were offered it.

Nobody ,she, s clearly a very talented player, I think a lot of pressure was piled on her after she won it and she's had health issues to deal with but she's very young ,she could win another grand slam .

I really don’t get the bitterness, of the current crop Katie Boulter and Harriet Dart will be unlikely to win a slam anytime soon. Andy Murray was constantly dismissed as rude in the early days. This is just how we treat sports stars seemingly.

Oh and it’s Raducanu 🙂

When would she have had the time to prepare for a Cambridge or Oxford interview process? She also only did two a levels as she was playing so much tennis!

It is very worrying that one so young is having surgery for so many injuries. I am not sure this is a healthy way to make a living. If she were 10 years older and nearing the end of her career it would make some sense but for her to be going through all this so early on does not bode well.

terrible thread title

Ok, she recently lost early in US.
But I think the way she plays shows a particular kind of 'magic'.

@seeminglyranch she went through the interview process years ago when she was in sixth form and received an offer. Not sure what oxbridge college (iirc it was at Cambridge) but they deferred it for when she was ready. There was a detailed article about it in the times last year which explained about the 2 A levels etc

I think you can be critical of elite sports people and it's a bit patronising to suggest women or tennis players should be entirely immune to that.

The problem with Emma in my opinion is that it is looking more and more likely as each season passes that she has had her zenith. I just feel sorry that she will continually have to justify to press her performances with the US open as a bench mark. It can't be fun.

Although extremely wealthy and talented I think she must realise she will have to play maybe this quite cruel game with the media for years and I think this is where the frustration will set in.

I completely agree that the US open is a millstone around her neck and ironically if she hadn't won it in such a fashion life would be easier for her.

I don't think it will help to have a long slow collapse of a career mentally and maybe this realisation is causing a certain amount of angst.

I think it's indicative of the women's game in general, to be honest. With the exception of the Williams sisters, no one else has been particularly consistent in recent years/decades. Different names come and go and, for whatever reason, aren't able to stick around for very long. I'm not sure why that is, is it something to do with the toll the sport takes on women's bodies, perhaps?

Unfortunately, it's to the detriment of the sport because none of the female players ever really end up becoming a 'big name' and I think it contributes to the women's game being less popular.

This.

Before Wimbledon in 2021 (the year she won the US Open) her ranking was something like 300 in the world. She rose meteorically off the back of getting into the 4th round at Wimbledon, and then, as a qualifier (a feat never before done by either sex in the Open Era) won the US Open. You don't do that without talent, but what she didn't have was a set coaching team, and it has been hard for her to find a good set up since then. IIRC the coach she had that year was a temporary one provided by the LTA.

And then she's had bad injuries that have required surgery, so she's hardly played any tennis since then.

She's only 21. The press has made a lot of her, and she's made the most of the opportunities presented to her (which is very sensible, given how short a tennis career is likely to be), but she's also still developing her game. You can see that she's a good player by how other players react to her. They find her hard to play - she and Jack Draper have that in common.

I think she needs to find a good coaching team, play the smaller tournaments, get more experience behind her, and she'll do well. She has a lot of innate talent; she needs to back it up with more time in the game.

As for the state of the women's game right now: Swiatek and Sabalenka are the two most consistent right now - Iga had that long run of match wins (37) and is there or thereabouts at most tournaments.

Rybakina is also fairly consistent, though she's had a few illnesses this year.

I don't know that we'll see the same dominance that we had from Serena or Steffi Graf, but I think that's a good thing, personally.

@Twinklefloss from what I recall, her granny told the Daily Mail that Cambridge said she was “welcome to take classes there anytime”. Cambridge wouldn’t confirm it and I don’t think she did either! Last year she went for a look around Oxford and according to the Times she was going there 🙄