Products You May Like
Emma Raducanu has defended her commitment to the sport and hit back at “unfair” criticism following her shock second round defeat in the Miami Open.
Following a mammoth three-hour match against Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova, Raducanu was knocked out of the tournament on Thursday.
After the result, Raducanu faced some criticism on social media claiming she has been distracted by sponsorship deals following her fairytale victory at the U.S. Open last year.
However, Britain’s No. 1 insisted that she is dedicated to improving her performances on the tennis court.
“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,” Raducanu told reporters.
“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.”
The U.S. Open champion will be back in action when she represents Great Britain in a Billie Jean King Cup qualifier against the Czech Republic in April.