‘I’m doing five, six hours a day’ says Emma Raducanu as she hits back at sponsorship critics
- Planet Sport writer
- 26 March 2022
Emma Raducanu has hit out at critics and defended her commitment to tennis amid “unfair” reaction to her growing portfolio of sponsorship deals.
The current US Open champion has seen her hard-court campaign come to an early end after she was knocked out in the second round of the Miami Open.
Raducanu lost 3-6 6-4 7-5 to Katerina Siniakova last Thursday night - her latest loss in a string of early tournament exits since her historic Flushing Meadows triumph.
Following her defeat, the 19-year-old was hit with criticism on social media over her growing list of sponsors.
At the start of the week, Porsche announced their latest deal with the teenager. However, the British number one underlined her commitment to tennis saying: "Maybe you just see, on the news or on social media, me signing this or that deal and I feel like it's quite misleading because I'm doing five, six hours a day (of training), I'm at the club for 12 hours a day.
"But I throw out one post in the car on the way to practice and all of a sudden it's 'I don't focus on tennis'. I think that it is unfair, but it's something I have learned to deal with and become a bit more insensitive to the outside noise.
"At the end of the day, I feel like my days (with sponsors) are pretty limited. I'm not doing crazy days. I'm doing three, four days every quarter, so it's really not that much."
Raducanu rose to global fame after storming to the US Open title last year. However, she has since found it difficult to build momentum on the WTA tour.
A Covid-19 infection affected her winter programme, but with the hard court campaign now behind her, the youngster will now be looking ahead to the clay season.
Her new commercial partner, Porsche, revealed that Raducanu will be involved in next month's Stuttgart Open - a tournament sponsored by the German car company.
But before that, the world number 13 will represent Team GB in a Billie Kean King Cup qualifying fixture against the Czech Republic in Prague.
