Emma Raducanu has hit out at the “unfair” criticism of her growing list of sponsorship deals and defended her commitment to tennis.
The US Open champion faced backlash after losing to Katerina Sinaiakova at the Miami Open on Thursday night, bringing her hard-court campaign to an end until later this summer.
Following the defeat, some comments on social media highlighted her increasing number of commercial partners.
The 19-year-old has most recently signed a deal with Porsche and Vodafone, but she insists despite her world-wide fame and duties as brand ambassador, her main priority is improving her game.
Ms Raducanu said: “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,”
Emma Raducanu
Geoff Burke
Emma Raducanu promoting Porsche on her social media
@EmmaRaducanu / Twitter
“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.”
Since a remarkable victory as a qualifier at Flushing Meadows in September, Ms Raducanu has found life difficult on the WTA tour.
A bout of coronavirus in the winter affected her training programme going into the new campaign and now the world No 13 will take a step into the unknown with the clay-court season - a surface she is most unfamiliar with - on the horizon.
Before that she will represent the UK in the Billie Jean King Cup qualifier where she will go up against the Czech Republic in Prague.
Ms Raducanu will make her singles debut in the competition across the weekend of April 15-16 alongside team-mates Harriet Dart, Katie Swan and Sonay Kartal.