Why We (Secretly) Hate And Love Emma Raducanu
Emma, it’s not personal.
--
I was lying down in a hotel bed the night Emma Raducanu won the US Open 2021. I was celebrating my 32nd birthday with my partner in Liverpool (I still don’t feel comfortable travelling overseas). I remember he wanted to go to sleep, but I wanted to watch her victory.
She won one of the most prestigious tennis prizes in the world at only 18 years old. After that, she became a millionaire, taking home $2,500,000 (more than £1,800,000).
Her life is forever changed. Now she has become the ambassador of prestigious fashion brands, such as Dior, and walked two red carpets among the top celebrities in the world in the US and in the UK. And for that, we secretly hate her. At only 18 years old, she is living a life that many of us will never have.
Emma became world-widely famous in June/July 2021 (around fourth months ago), when she first played at Wimbledon. During that championship, the media was already pressuring her to be a national hero. The girl that would bring the prize home.
In another article here at Medium where I talk about Emma Raducanu, I wrote this:
At Wimbledon, Emma Raducanu was given a chance many tennis players don’t have. She was then 338th in the world rank for female players. That means that there were at least 200 better players than her that could have been at Wimbledon. She got accepted at Wimbledon via the wild card. I wonder how these other 300 players that were probably left out feel about that. Emma already had more success than many others. She will take home £181,000, which she will pay taxes on, but before this moment, she never earned more than £30,000 with tennis.
We can’t deny that Emma Raducanu is talented, but she also got lucky. She was at the right time and place. Because she had a good performance at Wimbledon, she was able to play at the US Open. And then she brought the prize home. Now she is in the top 22 best female tennis players.
And now she also asks for patience. She knows that although her success was well deserved, that she also got lucky. She knows that she skipped many levels that would give her more experience and better prepare her for what is to come. She is asking for the media to…
