Emma Raducanu has had a rather unique experience when it comes to her tennis career but it's something other players can relate to.
No tennis player ever became a Grand Slam champion while coming from the qualifiers which is something that will always be reserved for Raducanu. Even if somebody equals it one day, Raducanu will always remain the first in history to have done it.
The Brit however dealt with extensive pressure since then and her results, which weren't that great, certainly didn't help in that regard. There have been hundreds of pieces written in the British media by now about Raducanu however she's managed to deal with it pretty well.
She's away from tennis and the WTA Tour right now due to the surgeries she had recently so generally there has been not much talk about her tennis career. It gives her a chance to properly reset and do everything she needs before coming back.
Fellow teenager Coco Gauff knows well how to bear a lot of pressure from a very young age. Her career too hasn't really gone as many expected, so much of the criticism that Raducanu received was heard by Gauff a few years earlier. She shared some advice on how to deal with all of that.
A lot of people will say a lot of things in the media and won't come up to you directly and say it – not just fans, but even like, you know, people commentating on matches. ‘I completely understand her point of view. For me, I hear a lot, so the best thing is to mute the noise and focus on myself and don't focus on what other people are saying.
Raducanu herself doesn't know when she'll return to tennis but there is a good chance that she makes her return later this year.