"My mom was backing me to prove him wrong" - Raducanu on relationship with parents

| by Drew Tate

Emma Raducanu has a tight bond with her parents but the methods of motivating her were always vastly different.

Emma Raducanu won the US Open last year as a qualifier and despite her parents being unable to watch from the stands they did it at home. She became a global superstar overnight but struggles with injuries and poor play since then means that Raducanu could dip into the abyss if she doesn't perform well over the next couple of weeks.

Speaking ahead of her title defence at US Open, she admitted that her parents always supported her but in different ways:

“My mum was always telling me, ‘You can do anything you set your mind to’. My dad’s method was very different, basically the opposite. He told me that I couldn’t do this and that, and then I wanted to prove him wrong so badly. That’s what made me so ambitious. My mum was always backing me to prove him wrong. That’s how I achieved good results.”

Raducanu teams up with Russian coach Tursunov ahead of 2022 US Open
Raducanu teams up with Russian coach Tursunov ahead of 2022 US Open

Getting as confident on the court as she is today was a struggle for Raducanu because she recollects a time when she was very shy both in classes and on the court:

"When I was five or six, I was pretty much the only girl in most of the classes. I remember clinging on to the fence, hiding behind my mum’s skirt. I didn’t want anything to do with it because I was shy. I’d cry on the court during a match.”

She finished off by admitting that she's not the most organised and that she was a typical teenager.

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