Emma Raducanu says sometimes she wishes she ‘never won the US Open’

Tennis star Emma Radacanu says she was ‘extremely naïve’ when she won the US Open and that the tour is ‘not a nice, trusting and safe space’.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Ms Radacanu said: ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never won the US Open’. 

Since her shock win in the major tournament, she has signed multi-million-pound sponsorship deals with the likes of Nike, Tiffany & Co, British Airways and Vodafone.

But Ms Raducanu has now blasted the way young players are treated on tour. 

She said: ‘I had to mature very quickly. When I won I was extremely naïve. What I have realised in the past two years, the tour and everything that comes with it, it’s not a very nice, trusting and safe space.’

Ms Raducanu said you have to be on your guard while on tour, as ‘there are a lot of sharks’ who saw her as a ‘piggy bank’. 

‘It has been difficult to navigate. I have been burnt a few times. I have learnt, keep your circle as small as possible,’ she added.

It is only two years ago that she was a schoolgirl unknown to the wider public completing her A-levels at school in Orpington, south-east London. 

But just weeks after putting her textbooks away, she enlivened Covid-stricken Britain by reaching the final 16 at Wimbledon, before withdrawing from the tournament after seeking medical attention. 

Then, just two months later, she sensationally won the US Open – and £2million – and became a national sporting superstar.

But Ms Radacanu will not play at Wimbledon this year because of wrist and ankle injuries, and has lost her UK ladies number one spot. 

And she claims she was under extreme levels of pressure after winning the US Open, adding that the tour is ‘completely brutal’.

‘If I lost a match, I would be really down,’ she said. 

‘I was under so much pressure to perform, people had no idea what was going on and I had to have this façade, to keep everything inside. It has been really hard. 

‘And then to be scrutinised for it when they don’t know what is going on. I am very young and still learning and making mistakes.’

Ms Raducanu added: ‘It is a lot harder when you are making mistakes in front of everyone and everyone has something to say about it. The tour is completely brutal.’ 

Ms Raducanu said her experience had also been tarnished by a series of injuries – she is recovering from three operations – and the pain escalated after last year’s Wimbledon. ‘I was struggling with the physical pain but the mental side of it was really difficult for me, too,’ she said.

But away from the tennis court, however, former US Open champion Emma Raducanu, 20, appears to have formed her own ‘mixed doubles’ partnership with the son of a billionaire. 

He is former Harrow public school head boy Carlo Agostinelli, 22, who also played football for America’s Stanford University while studying international relations. 

Mr Agostinelli is the jet-setting son of London-based American private equity dollar billionaire Robert Agostinelli, 70, a former Goldman Sachs banker who once tried to buy Liverpool football club.

Ms Raducanu and the younger Mr Agostinelli both posted images of themselves enjoying each other’s company in Mexico City last month – and she has also been seen visiting his £2million flat.

Last week, the pair arrived in a limousine together at the mansion block in Kensington, west London, which he calls home when he is not in Paris. He was holding a large bunch of roses, she a tennis racket. 

When they emerged a couple of hours later, Ms Raducanu was wearing Mr Agostinelli’s suit jacket as they got into a second limousine and drove off. 

Days earlier, Mr Agostinelli’s model sister Heloise had posted an image on social media of her and Ms Raducanu dining together in an exclusive Paris restaurant. 

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk